


damage control for a walking corpse

by theheartischill



Series: help, i'm alive [1]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alcohol, Bad Decisions, Bad Sex, Dark Comedy, Diners, Drugs, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Hotels, Inappropriate Behavior, M/M, Phone Sex, Quentin Coldwater Lives, Road Trips, Stress Eating, Suicidal Ideation, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:33:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 78,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25915906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theheartischill/pseuds/theheartischill
Summary: He had broken up with Alice because — it almost didn’t bear going into. He had broken up with Alice because he never should have gotten back with Alice; because they were different people who wanted different things in a way that had been easier to ignore when they were grad students wrestling with the same coursework; because he came back from the dead and the person on the other side of the faultline in his life seemed suddenly very far away; because Alice was always saying things like “Q, have you thought about seeing a therapist?” and “I’m worried about you, Q,” and “Quentin, I really think you should be talking to a professional,” and Quentin was always saying things like “I need to go to sleep,” and “I’m gonna get another beer,” and “Not to be an asshole, but can you like get off my fucking dick?”But also, he had broken up with Alice because he had a sex dream about Eliot Waugh.(Or: Quentin blows up his life, hops into a car with Julia, and flees the state. It's not exactly the fresh start he'd hoped for.)
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater & Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Other(s)
Series: help, i'm alive [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1880812
Comments: 307
Kudos: 194





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Story notes:** This story starts a bit less than a year after the events of 4x13, and six months after Quentin's been resurrected. His death remains as it plays out in canon; none of the season five set-up stuff is incorporated (Fillory time jump, magic surges, library). Also, not super relevant, but nothing ever happened between Julia and Penny-23, because I simply cannot anymore, with that.
> 
>  **Content notes:** I never know how to warn for this stupid show, and even less so for a story that I have semi-seriously described as being tonally akin to a _New Girl_ episode about PTSD, which is to say that while this story is funny to _me_ , it is also very much a long and up-close look at a character in a dark, fucked up place who is dealing with that extremely poorly. Some things I want to be clear about up front to help you gauge whether this story might be for you: Quentin spends most of this story being, like, _such_ an asshole, all the time, including repeatedly to Eliot, on purpose; as mentioned above, I think of this as the first half of a story in two parts, and deliberately tagged it "hopeful ending" instead of "happy ending" — there _is_ a real happy ending for this story's Quentin, but it **doesn't happen** in these six chapters; all the sex that happens in this story (and there is a lot of it) is considered fully consensual by everyone involved, but pretty much all of it takes place under the influence of alcohol or other substances, sometimes quite severely, and pretty much all of it is some combination of uncomfortable, weird, regrettable, or otherwise emotionally fraught; did I mention that this is largely a story about Quentin being a dick? **Some chapters will have more specific warnings** , for which I'll make a quick note at the top and then give the information in the end notes of that chapter.
> 
> I think this is as useful as I can be to the general audience, but if you are curious but nervous and would like more clarity or to ask about something specific, please feel free to drop me a message [on Tumblr](http://prettyboysdontlookatexplosions.tumblr.com) and I will be more than happy to tell you privately whatever you need to know. If you don't have a Tumblr or don't feel comfortable sharing it with me, you can send me an anonymous message with an email address and I'll contact you there.
> 
>  **Art Note:** [fishydwarrows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishydwarrows/pseuds/fishydwarrows)/[fishfingersandscarves](https://fishfingersandscarves.tumblr.com/post/629713121419935745/damage-control-for-a-walking-corpse-by) has made two GORGEOUS, PERFECT pieces of art about this story, which could not be more perfect and beautiful if I had manifested them in a dream; please do yourself a favor and click [here](https://fishfingersandscarves.tumblr.com/post/629713121419935745/damage-control-for-a-walking-corpse-by) and [here](https://fishfingersandscarves.tumblr.com/post/631084154140917760/just-some-lyrics-from-lifetime-achievement-award) to see them.

_Now_

While they’re sitting in traffic on the Henry Hudson Parkway Quentin says, “I mean it’s just unbelievable.”

In the passenger’s seat Julia says, “Totally.”

“Just the level of presumption that it takes to even _think_ ,” Quentin goes on, “after how shit went down with us — that I would just — but you know, no, he didn’t think. That’s like, the entire problem with him. He doesn’t think. It goes against his fucking _aesthetic_. This whole stupid — debauched dauphin bullshit, which is — not as attractive as he thinks he is, I mean, he’s like practically thirty, at this point it’s less Oscar Wilde and more Dorian Gray — _not_ that he would get that reference, by the way — so he doesn’t think, just — _does things_ , and, and _makes assumptions_ , and — you know, fuck anyone who happens to be operating from the premise that reality is somehow, like, continuous, and would maybe like it to make a modicum of sense from hour to hour.”

“Ugh,” Julia says, “I hate that.”

“Right? And meanwhile, _my_ whole problem is that I never _stop_ thinking. My brain is just a fucking — swamp of thoughts spawning uncontrollably like mold. Or like a, a psychological tumor. Just these — malignant thinking cells. I mean, I thought myself right into the literal, actual grave. So, _first_ of all, we were obviously never going to work, which was like, the one thing on earth he’s ever been unequivocally right about. _One time_ , he has an actual insight, and —” The car in front of them lurches forward and Quentin begins pressing slowly on the gas. “And _second_ of all, it’s like, I try to take a night off from the pathological verbosity of my inner monologue, which for the record I feel like I’m entitled to at this point —”

“Absolutely,” Julia says.

“— and _that’s_ when he decides suddenly he’s Mr. Taking Things Seriously? Mr. Articulating His Emotions? Like, are you kidding me?”

“God, I know,” Julia says.

Traffic slows back down to a crawl. To their left the river is slate gray under the unbroken clouds and on its other side the Jersey skyline looks drab, lifeless. Less like buildings and more like a set of abstract quadrilaterals deposited as halfhearted scenery. “He probably knows Dorian Gray,” Quentin admits. “He played Algernon in _The Importance of Being Earnest_ when he was in twelfth grade.” They start moving again and he lets out a groan. “Why do I still know that? How long am I going to have to fucking carry this library of inane trivia about Eliot Waugh in my brain? How is it that a person can just — implant in you all this bullshit like, the first CD he bought was NSYNC, and he got fired from an organic juice shop whose owner was later arrested on weapons charges — because he’s totally irresponsible, too, that’s like, part of the not-thinking thing — and you just have to — live with it, and pretend you don’t know, and then as soon as you’ve gotten used to it — after you’ve gotten together _and_ broken up with someone else — he’s just like, j/k! What part of that makes any sense?”

“None of it makes sense,” Julia agrees. “So you’re going to want to take exit 4 to get on the Hutch.”

Quentin takes a long breath through his nose and keeps an eye out for the green sign.

_Before_

He had broken up with Alice because — it almost didn’t bear going into. He had broken up with Alice because he never should have gotten back with Alice; because they were different people who wanted different things in a way that had been easier to ignore when they were grad students wrestling with the same coursework; because he came back from the dead and the person on the other side of the faultline in his life seemed suddenly very far away; because Alice was always saying things like “Q, have you thought about seeing a therapist?” and “I’m worried about you, Q,” and “Quentin, I really think you should be talking to a professional,” and Quentin was always saying things like “I need to go to sleep,” and “I’m gonna get another beer,” and “Not to be an asshole, but can you like get off my fucking dick?”

But also, he had broken up with Alice because he had a sex dream about Eliot Waugh.

He had told Julia about it the next morning in a panic and she had calmly pointed out that dreams are random neurons firing and everyone has had sex dreams about people they didn’t actually want to sleep with and there was a lot of complicated emotional and erotic history between him and Eliot and the fact that his subconscious would process that in this way didn’t necessarily have anything to do with his relationship with Alice.

Which would have been reassuring, if Quentin hadn’t immediately woken up from the sex dream and grabbed his dick.

“Unnecessarily graphic,” Julia had said, making a face into her coffee.

“Yeah, sorry, I hear that now,” he said, shaking his head. “But —”

“No, yeah, I see your point.”

He’d grabbed his dick and thought: _Don’t do this._ Speaking very firmly and trying to project for himself an air of calm like an unwanted step-parent attempting to play the disciplinarian. _Don’t do this_ , he thought, trying to clear his brain of the last few seconds of the sex dream, in which Eliot had been wearing some kind of Fillorian tuxedo (?) and his hair was very curly. They had been on a boat which was also a hallway from Quentin’s high school and Quentin had been explaining if they got caught they would get detention. In the dream this had been very hot. _Don’t do this_ , he warned his brain, and like a bratty thirteen-year-old mad that he wasn’t their real dad his brain said: _Remember when Dream Eliot smiled like a sexy vampire and told you he didn’t need long to fuck you into next week? Remember when Dream Eliot bent you over the spare lab table/bench of navigational instruments and bit into the back of your shoulder because for some reason you weren’t wearing a shirt? Remember how the whole reason you woke yourself up is because you couldn’t stop thinking about how meta it was that you were fucking in your high school, you complete weirdo, because you had not been this hormonally wrecked since you were trying to hide an erection in honors geometry the day that Julia wore a thong and then you started feeling guilty about objectifying her?_

Quentin had shaken his head miserably at the ceiling. _Don’t do this_ , he thought, starting to lose his cool. _Just — just let go_. But his hand stayed stubbornly put while the kindergartener with separation anxiety in his brain started throwing markers across the room: _Remember how Real Eliot had like the biggest hands in the entire known universe and it turned out that you were a huge slut for sucking on his fingers till you gagged? Remember his huge cock? God his cock was like, SO big. Remember how sometimes Real Eliot used to kiss you like a wounded soldier coming home to his sweetheart after a battle in which all his comrades had been slain? Remember the time he ate you out so long you cried?_

 _Alice_ , he had thought desperately, in the tones of an attempt to bribe wayward children with pizza if they just behaved till their mother got home. _Alice, Alice, your girlfriend, remember her? Pretty Alice, you’re in love with her, she’s super hot, Alice and her, I mean, really just magnificent fucking tits, sorry, breasts, remember that time she let you come on them and actually seemed sort of into it, remember the noise she makes when you pull her hair, remember how you’re like actually really good now at getting her off and she fucking screams your name for it, extremely sexy, very good times, you’ve really like grown erotically a lot together over the past few years, you should both be very proud_ —

But he had lost control. The house was a melee. Slamming doors and screaming insults and food being thrown out of the refrigerator and the middle child straight up drawing on the walls. He was left to his own monstrous hard-on and his hand fisting desperate and dry and his brain saying: _But like seriously remember his cock? Remember how it was so enormous that for like a year after you’d started fucking regularly you were convinced every single time that you had remembered it being larger than it was but no actually it was that big? Remember it in your mouth and deep inside your ass and leaking in Eliot’s hands that time he tied you up with the rope you usually hung laundry on to dry and when he called you pretty you got so hard you lasted like five seconds once he started sucking you off? Remember how bizarrely hot you were for how sweaty he got when you fucked?_

And then he had come — horribly, gratefully, incredibly, guiltily — all over the sheets in the bed where his girlfriend was still sleeping next to him.

“I feel like you could have left out some parts of that story,” Julia said when he told her. “Like maybe the bit about fifteen-year-old me in a thong.”

“I might not be doing great,” Quentin said. “With… things.”

Julia raised her eyebrows. “Might?”

“So like,” he said. “I need to break up with her, right?”

“Honestly?” Julia looked him in the eye. “On principle, no. People in relationships get to have weird fantasies. But I think if this was just jerking off after a sex dream about your ex, you wouldn’t have felt the need to tell me about it. In detail.” Quentin nodded. “In like, intense detail.”

“Yeah,” Quentin said.

“Like really gratuitous detail, Quentin,” she said. “Like details that I just did not need or want to know about, and like, I’ll take it, and handle it, because you’re my best friend and I love you and you’re going through a rough time, but also it is literally 7:45 in the morning. Feels like it’s just — it’s just a lot, first thing after waking up. Like maybe you could have let me finish my toast first.”

“I’m,” Quentin said. “God. I really need —”

“A therapist?” Julia said.

“I was going to say a drink,” he said.

“Okay,” Julia said. “Did you miss the part about 7:45 in the morning? This is not a case where it’s-five-o-clock-somewhere applies. Just to be clear.”

“Technically it is five o’clock somewhere,” he said. “Or 5:45, anyway. But, no, yeah, I mean I was like, mostly kidding.” He had not been even a little kidding. But if she was going to get all _judgy_.... “But I do need —”

“A therapist,” Julia said.

“— to break up with Alice,” he said. “And then I think I’m going to go to— ”

“Therapy.”

“Fillory,” he said. “So we can get some, like. Space. You know?”

“Do they have therapists in Fillory?” Julia said.

“I hear you,” he said, “Jules, and it’s really sweet that you’re concerned.”

“I don’t really feel like you hear me,” she said. Then Alice had come into the kitchen and, well. Band-Aid, ripping. By the time the second pot of coffee had brewed it was over.

**__** _Now_

“And _another_ thing is,” Quentin says, for maybe the dozenth time, “it’s bad enough that he would just — _decide_ what reality is now, and, like, fuck me for being slow to catch the fuck up, and fuck me for having an alternate version of events, and definitely fuck me for maybe getting a new perspective on some things after, you know, _dying_ , and — god, it’s just — _infuriating._ ”

“The worst,” Julia says. “Now we’re going to merge onto six heading east.”

Quentin nods to show he’s heard her and is not about to keep driving in a straight line until they careen into Cape Cod even though he — kind of wants to. Not seriously, just — the image is there, the screaming bystanders, the trail of wreckage, the eventual sand kicking up against the windows, and then — _plunk!_ Gravity and darkness. Saltwater in his lungs. “But what really gets me is that it’s just — so fucking typical. Like, in Eliot land, feelings are stupid bullshit, until _he_ has a feeling, and then the whole world has to stop on its goddamn axis. Feelings matter, now that Eliot has discovered he has feelings. Not _my_ feelings, obviously. Fuck _my_ feelings. Fuck that I just broke up with my girlfriend — my actual, non-alternate universe girlfriend, who I have actually dated and had sex with while sober in this lifetime — and good sex, too, okay, Eliot loves to think he like, invented fucking but he didn’t, obviously — and fuck that, not to sound like a broken record but, I legit died. Which was kind of, arguably, his fault. Fuck me for feeling maybe a little _complicated_ about the person who dumped me five minutes before getting his dumb ass possessed — like what, _I’m_ the dick now?”

“Ridiculous,” Julia says. “We’re taking the Killingly Street exit into Providence.”

“What a normal, not remotely portentous name,” Quentin mutters, but he starts to scan the signs for it, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he thinks about the mess. About Eliot. About the fucking _nerve_ — “Like, he’s the only one allowed to be a fuck-up with bad coping mechanisms? I really feel like, again, sorry to beat a dead horse, pun not intended, but if dying gets you anything, I think it should get you a pass on some unhealthy coping mechanisms. I think if anyone deserves to get shitfaced and make some bad decisions, it’s me.”

He’s half-expecting and maybe half-hoping that Julia will cluck concernedly at that, but she just says mildly, “Makes sense. We couldn’t get the exact location because Kady said the house has anti-cartographical wards on it, but apparently it’s on the left, light-up lawn gnome out front.”

Quentin watches the buildings drift from gas stations and local chain drive-thrus to evenly spaced white and gray clapboard two-stories, squat brick houses with steeply pitched roofs, lawns revealing varying levels of horticultural interest — shockingly ugly troll-like sculpture of a sinister little man with white and red lights blinking to no apparent pattern in its weather-beaten green jacket. He pulls the car to a stop as Julia lifts her purse onto her shoulder but once they’re parked he doesn’t open the door.

“You coming?” she says.

He stares at the black leather of steering wheel like it’s Nietzsche’s fucking abyss. Wondering what it would see if it looked back. Quietly he asks, “Do you think Alice is ever going to forgive me?”

Julia gives a sympathetic exhale and places a warm hand on his shoulder. “Q, I love how much you trust in my powers of perception,” she says, “but I don’t have any more of an answer for that than I did when you asked me two hours ago.”

He sighs and gets out of the car.

_Before_

The worst part was how tired she had looked, when he told her. How she didn’t seem at all surprised even though the day before they’d had an actual candlelit dinner at an Italian place uptown and cuddled on the couch while watching old episodes of _Weeds_ and told each other they loved each other and had some very high-quality sex. How he had tried to say, meaning it, “It’s not you, it’s —” and she had finished: “Eliot.”

“What?” he said, both actually shocked and trying to sound convincingly so. “No — no, Vix, not at all, that has — _nothing_ to do with — God, I can’t believe you would even _think_ of — _I_ barely think of him, you know, when he’s not around — it’s like I don’t even have object permanence, when it comes to Eliot —” He had maybe overdone it, in retrospect.

“The actual literal least you could do at this point,” she said, “is not fucking lie to me, Quentin.”

And that had made sense. He had found it kind of moving, actually — like after all they’d been through, every crazy fucked up life-and-death turn in the road, at least they still had their honesty. Like it was okay that they had once again failed to make each other happy, as long as they kept what was really special about them, which was that they tried to show each other their real selves, even when it was hard. So he had taken a deep breath and said, “Yeah. It’s Eliot.”

“Jesus fuck,” Alice said. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“But not like — we’re not — I mean and I don’t even think I, I want that, exactly, like I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, I mean all that stuff with him is, it’s ancient history but I’m realizing things are just really complicated for me right now, you know, with the undying, and like, last night I had this insanely hot sex dream where we were on a boat in the science wing of my high school, and —”

“ _Quentin_ ,” she shrieked, “why would you fucking tell me that!”

“You said you wanted me to be honest!”

“I said I didn’t want you to _lie_ ,” she said, “not give me the play by play of your sexual fantasies about your ex! Also, we’re _breaking up_! Who cares if you lie to me! I’ll never fucking know! God, you are so _stupid._ ”

“It’s not — it wasn’t fantasies!” he protested. “I wouldn’t do that to you, okay, it was — it was a dream, like a literal when I was sleeping dream — and _one_ round of masturbation, and for the record I felt _super_ guilty about it while it was happening —”

“ _Shut the entire-ass fuck up, Quentin_.”

Behind her glasses her eyes looked incandescently angry. Maybe murderously so. It was hard to believe he deserved otherwise. He nodded very slowly, like you might move to avoid scaring a wild animal. “Duly noted.”

Kady and the Pennys had gathered at the edge of the kitchen, looking, respectively, unimpressed and darkly amused. Quentin still didn’t understand what bureaucratic Underworld finagling had let them two-for-the-price-of-one resurrect him and Penny-40 together, but it occurred to him not for the first time that maybe it involved some secret bargain to ensure his new life remained in practice an exercise in eternal torment. He bit his lip. “I really hope —”

“If you say you hope we can be friends,” Alice said, “I am _for real_ going to kill you myself. I will make it _hurt_ , and this time I will make sure that it sticks.” She leaned in close and jabbed a finger in his face. “ _None_ of those bitches could have brought you back without me.”

“Yeah, um. “ He cleared his throat. “That checks out.” From the corner both Pennys crowed with laughter. That checked out, too.

_Now_

The spell goes smoothly. Eight people, five of whom seem to be living in the house, plus three stragglers. Afterwards, once Julia finishes going over the steps for transmission, two residents insist on bringing out refreshments as an offering of thanks and hospitality, and within a few minutes Quentin finds himself in the weirdly familiar position of standing with Julia and apart, next to her and a step behind, drinking Blue Moon while she charms a crowd.

“I’m sorry, I know this isn’t really your thing,” she says low to him while others carry on a good-natured but increasingly loud debate about the most essential warding spells. “We can get going.”

He shrugs. “It’s your turn to drive next, right?” he says, lifting up his beer. “I’m fine.”

She studies him like she’s trying to decide whether to believe him and he amends it to: “I’m not any less fine here than I would be anywhere else. You’re having fun, right?”

“Yeah,” she says, “but —”

The conversation has shifted to a discussion of the Kohler Paradox and its potential applications to the meta-math of psychic mapping. Quentin nudges Julia’s shoulder. “They’re playing your song. Really, don’t worry about it.”

She gives him a quick kiss on the cheek before turning back to chime in. “I was actually reading about some work being done in Iceland, I think, around devising a set of testable hypotheses using Okamoto’s number…”

The weird thing is that he does feel fine. He surveys the room — Julia’s crowd of hobbyist theoreticians, a pair in a back corner with arms around each other’s waists tossing illumination spells back and forth in giddy celebration, two girls, younger than the rest by the looks of them, whispering animatedly on a patchwork sofa — and tries to conjure up the expected dread, the old anxiety about disinterested faces and judgmental glances, that lifelong drumbeat reminding him that at some point everyone else had learned the rules and he never would, but it’s nowhere to be found. Like the Quentin that gave a shit about what some stranger with a beard might think of his shirt died, and whatever part of him made it back can’t imagine caring that much. About, like, anything.

The girls on the sofa keep looking over at him and he can see like he’s watching a ghost his old self flushing hot, trying to look busy yet unbothered, ping-ponging back and forth in his head between running through everything wrong with him they might have spotted and telling himself he’s being a narcissist to even think they might have noticed him. Instead of any of that, he feels — nothing whatsoever. A blank and limitless void. It’s kind of nice. He takes a drink, half-listening to Julia ask someone about the disturbances they experienced when they worked at some Scottish hotel, and remembers suddenly —

_First semester in the cottage, some unremarkable Saturday night, arm around Alice’s waist and feeling stupid with how much he liked her, the miracle of how easy it was to fit when he had someone to fit against, her scrunched-nose laugh she only made when she was drunk or after sex, loosened into sweetness._

_—Ah, the resident turtle-doves._

_Margo, hands on hips, dripping imperiousness as ever, and they could only look at each other and smile helplessly while Eliot glided into place behind her._

_—Now, Bambi. I think it’s sweet. We could use some old-fashioned necking around here. It would add variety to our slatternly habits._

_He caught Quentin’s eye and his smile darkened into something somehow both predatory and proud, that way Eliot always had of being two ways at once which made him frightening but comforting, too, and to be deemed worthy of a smile like that gave Quentin an electric frisson almost as good as how it felt to make Alice smile like it was easy for her…_

“Q? You there?”

Julia is talking to him. He stares at her, trying to force his way back into the present. “Yeah, I — sorry, just spaced out a bit. What were you saying?”

She doesn’t seem wholly convinced, but she leaves it. “I was just asking if you wanted to get dinner in town before we headed back out on the road.”

“Oh,” he says. “Sure. That sounds great.”

_Before_

So he had gone to Fillory, to give Alice time to figure shit out. Or maybe to stay, who fucking knew. Margo was High King, that was cool. Fillory had low-key ruined his life like seven times over but he didn’t have any better ideas. Something about having been a dead person really had a way of fucking with your ability to imagine the future. That might also have been why he’d broken up with Alice: she had all these ideas, and plans, and he was pretty impressed with himself these days if he figured out what he wanted for dinner before nine p.m., and extra impressed if the answer was something other than wine and Pop Tarts.

He’d run into Eliot shortly after stepping through the clock, wandering around Whitespire trying to remember which tower Margo had set as regular quarters for visitors from Earth. Eliot seemed happy and surprised to see him. “Q, what’s up?”

Quentin was glad to see him, too. Possibly he shouldn’t have been, given — everything. But it had just been a dream. A dream that, sure, pointed to some shit buried somewhere in the trainwreck of his memories that might at some point need to be processed. But in the conscious light of day, that seemed very distant. He’d long since nursed the wounds of this particular disaster. It had hurt, and he’d gotten over it. Like adults did, when they cared about someone else more than they needed that person to want them in a specific way. Maybe the sex dream _had_ been about Alice, his brain’s way of alerting him to danger there. Suggesting something in their dynamic that needed to be outgrown. Because seeing Eliot coming towards him down the marble-floored hallway didn’t feel like seeing someone he’d been thinking about getting railed by while blindfolded twelve hours ago. It felt like seeing a friend. He’d worked very hard to get to a place where he looked at Eliot and saw a friend.

Besides, unlike _some people_ , Eliot wasn’t going to give him shit about drinking before lunch.

Maybe he _would_ stay in Fillory for a while.

“El,” he said, “hey. Alice and I broke up.”

Eliot’s face knotted into sad concern, which Quentin hadn’t been expecting. “Oh, shit, Q. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s — fine,” he said. Which — it did feel, weirdly, fine. It also felt like total shit because of his pathological inability to stop hurting the people he claimed to care about and because he was apparently even more clueless about the inner workings of his own mind than he’d realized and because without Alice he was once again a zombie grad school dropout who had probably PTSD or some shit and no job, purpose in life, or reason to get out of bed in the morning, and also now he wasn’t getting laid. But he wasn’t like, _pining_.

No one else thought it was funny when he called himself a zombie. They gave him these unhappy worried looks like they were afraid he might be contemplating rejoining his brethren on the other side. But no one else had died, so, you know. Fuck them!

“Well,” Eliot said, “I’m glad you’re feeling okay.” He sounded very earnest. With those big anime eyes catching candlelight. It was sweet. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Oh _definitely_ not,” Quentin said. “But I would like to drink about it.” He brandished the wine he’d brought in his bag.

Eliot nodded, brows furrowed. “It’s — well I thought we’d sorted out the time-sliding business but here it’s technically still the morning.”

“Yeah, it’s like eleven-thirty on Earth,” Quentin said, “what’s your point? Did Eliot Waugh go fucking straight-edge on me while I was dead?”

Eliot gave a little laugh — a weird little laugh. “Hardly. But — I am trying to, uh. Be a bit more responsible I guess. About some things.”

Quentin raised an eyebrow.

“Like drinking things,” Eliot said. “Just, you know. I’m doing — royal stuff again, and it’s… mostly pretty minor, but I feel like I should be like, a good role model, and I want to be there for Margo, and support her leadership…”

Quentin raised both eyebrows.

“I mean,” Eliot said, “I’m not saying I _can’t_ , just saying I’m not sure if I… should.” He made a small smile. A weird smile. Why was he being so weird?

“Okay, well,” Quentin said, “ _I_ definitely _shouldn’t_ but I’m gonna, and I’m playing the heartbroken best friend card, so, I’m not sure you have a choice.”

Eliot squinted at him. “You just said you were fine.”

“I’m both,” Quentin said. “I’m fine enough that you don’t need to worry about me, but heartbroken enough that you absolutely do have to come get drunk with me. I mean —” He batted his eyelashes. “Gosh, Eliot, left to my own devices, who knows what I might get up to under the influence?”

An affectionate grin spread across Eliot’s face. “Right. Because you’re such a bad boy.”

 _—You’re so dirty, Q, who knew you were so fucking dirty, you’ll let me do just anything to you and it feels so good, babe, you’re so_ — Nope! Daylight! Maturity! Friends! “I mean I don’t know if you heard, but I did kill myself a while ago.”

Eliot looked stricken, which — that one he should have seen coming, maybe. “Q, are you —”

“I’m not gonna _die_ ,” Quentin said, rolling his eyes, “grow up.” People were so fucking sensitive around him now, and like? _It’s his party, and he’ll joke about his own fucking suicide play if he wants to!_ “But I might do all sorts of other questionable things. Unless my loyal best friend is there to take care of me, so…” He dangled the wine bottle like a cat toy.

“I feel like you might not be processing this break-up super well,” Eliot said.

“Uh, yeah, that’s like my whole point, have you not been listening?” Quentin opened the bottle of wine and took a drink. He was tired of waiting. He held out the bottle to Eliot, trying to cock his eyebrow invitingly although he wasn’t as good at that as Eliot was.

“Well,” Eliot said, “if you insist.” He sounded dubious, but he took the bottle anyway, and Quentin grinned. Good old Eliot. His life might have sucked but it did help, having a friend he could count on.

_Now_

“It’s just crazy,” Quentin says. “Everything about us was already so crazy, just because of like, _circumstance_. I’m not Logan Echolls at the alterna-prom here. I don’t want _epic_. I’m over epic, thank you very much. Possession? Death? These are not the building blocks of a successful romance, and frankly you would have to be nuts to go through what we’ve gone through and still even _want_ to be together. There’s just too much fucking baggage there. I mean, I feel like maybe that’s why I had to break up with Alice, you know? Sometimes you just need a fresh fucking start.”

“Could be,” Julia says. “Can you pass me a Sweet-n-Low?”

He hands her the little pink packet from the white ceramic holder and she empties it into her coffee. They’re in a diner in Providence. Quentin had a BLT with fries but he still feels — not _hungry_ , exactly, but he wants — he drinks the watered-down remains of his soda, ice cubes bumping against his nose. “And frankly, we were a crazy idea in the best case scenario. Which he knows! Like, he was _right_ , Jules. We don’t live in a shack in the woods. In the actual world, we are very different people. We would drive each other completely insane in like, a month. Honestly I think what must have happened is, he felt guilty that I was dead and talked himself into some idealized vision of me, or of us, or whatever, which, I get that grief makes people do weird shit, but to then turn around and act like I’m being the asshole just by, what? By being my _actual_ self, instead of whatever imaginary boyfriend Quentin lives in Eliot’s head? It’s unreal.”

“I know,” Julia says. She lifts her hand just slightly and their curly-haired waitress stops at the edge of their table. “Could we get the check, please?”

“Sure thing, hon.” The waitress scrawls something onto her pad and places their check on the black formica table. “You can pay up front when you’re ready.”

“No rush if you want to take your time with your coffee,” Julia tells him as she walks away. “Just figured since we were done ordering.”

“Yeah, of course.” Quentin takes a sip of his coffee, wishing it were hotter. He wants something that will scald his tongue. Something where he’ll feel the sting later. “More than anything, I just don’t _get_ it. I was — _so_ normal about it, after he made it clear that we were over. I was like the most normal I’d ever been about anything. I was like a fucking black belt of being normal friends with your ex. Where the fuck did he get the idea that I was ready to dive into a relationship with him?”

“Well,” says Julia, “you did break up with Alice and then immediately have sex with him. For like. Hours.”

He stares at her incredulously. “Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying,” Julia continues, “I can see how that could have confused things.”

“Whose side are you on?” he demands.

Julia holds up her palms signaling peace. “Yours, Q. Obviously I’m on your side.”

“Well — good,” he says, deflating slightly. “Because it’s the right side.”

“Mhmm,” she says. “I’m on your side, and Eliot sucks, and only a crazy person would think it meant anything that his ex dumped his girlfriend, tracked him down on another planet, and begged him to tie him to the bed with shoelaces and fuck his face.”

Quentin blinks in alarm. “Did I tell you about that? I don’t remember telling you about that.”

Julia nods like a doctor giving a grim diagnosis. “You’ve told me about many things, Q.”

“Oh,” he says, disconcerted. “Did I tell you about —”

“Bending you over on the footstool, yes.”

“And when —”

“You did it in character as a bartender and his boss, uh huh.”

“And how —”

“His chest hair gets really sweaty during sex, yep.” Her lip curls slightly. “You mentioned that one several times, actually.”

“I’m — okay, well. The point still stands,” he says, even though he’s not sure anymore what point he was making. He balls up his napkin and eyes the remains of Julia’s omelette and toast. “Are you gonna eat that?”

_Before_

They’d gone to Eliot’s room to be unbothered and Quentin had felt almost nostalgic, like they were back at the cottage when things were simple. Drinking wine and half-listening to Eliot talk about palace gossip, little sketches of everyday lust and minor betrayal that didn’t matter. It was a relief to be somewhere he didn’t need to matter. By the bottom of the first bottle Eliot seemed to have forgotten whatever reservations he’d had and both of them kept laughing about nothing in particular and that was a relief, too: the laughter and also the nothing. He felt warm and safe curled up in their nothing.

More wine appeared, somehow, and kept appearing. At one point long after Quentin had lost track of time Eliot left and came back with a spread from the kitchen on a gold-filigreed tray they set in front of them on the floor. Quentin sat up — when had he lain down? — to eat and when they’d finished with the pheasant and root vegetable medley and were splitting a soft roll, still hot, with which Josh had apparently recommended the raspberry-apricot jam, he thought pleasantly of how he could sit here and recall fifty years of sharing bread and not feel like it mattered at all. The other thing about Alice was that she was always _wanting_ things from him. Things like waking up before noon, or leaving the apartment. Eliot didn’t want anything from him. It seemed absurd that Quentin had ever thought this was a bad thing. He had been silly not to see how lucky he was to have someone who would never ask him for anything real.

“Maybe I’m just not a relationship person,” he said. He was licking jam off his fingers because it didn’t matter if Eliot thought he was gross. Eliot’s face went sort of pained, like it hurt to hear Quentin talk about himself like that, so he added, “I don’t mean that in a bad way. Just — I mean, you of all people know I’m not good at them. Maybe I need to just stop chasing something that I think is going to make me happy and accept that, you know.” He shrugged. “Some people were just meant to die alone.”

Eliot said, “Q….” in that minor-key worry voice.

“Not die, like, _now_ ,” Quentin assured him. “ _Now_ I’m feeling great. This was exactly what I needed today.” He gave Eliot a grin to show his appreciation.

Eliot didn’t look appeased. Seriously, what was _with_ him? “Are _you_ okay?” Quentin asked, refilling his glass.

Eliot managed a wan smile. “Yeah, just —” He cleared his throat. “I just feel like you shouldn’t… sell yourself short, you know? You have a lot to offer, and I think — with the right partner, if they… if they let you in, you would make it work. Because you’re a really special person, Q. You’re — you’re brave, and you’re loyal, and you’re full of love, and — and the right person is going to see that. Even if maybe it takes them a while, because they’re dealing with their own shit.”

Quentin shrugged. “Maybe.” He didn’t feel full of love. He didn’t feel full of anything, except wine. He wondered if there were any more of those rolls downstairs.

“Like maybe,” Eliot said, “maybe they were afraid, and clinging to some outdated narratives about who they were as a person, and kind of dumb. And maybe they thought that because they could name their trauma that meant they had processed it but actually they realized they needed to do a lot of work on themselves to stop letting it dictate their choices, and they’re in a better place now, and really proud of themselves, honestly, for trying to like, grow and heal and whatever, but they also really wish they could go back and take back some of the decisions they made when they were still running from their damage.”

“I guess,” Quentin said. He was kind of losing the thread, but it seemed rude to say so. “But I don’t even know if I _want_ a relationship. I mean, what would a relationship add to my life besides drama? Well, and sex,” he allowed. “The sex is nice. That part, you have to admit, I’m pretty good at.”

Eliot choked on his wine and started to cough.

“ _Ouch_ ,” Quentin said. “Way to kick a guy when he’s down.”

Eliot shook his head; took several slow sips; swallowed again; set down his glass. “Trust me, I was not… disputing your claim.”

Quentin smiled, pleased. Feeling generous he said, “Well, I did learn from the best.”

Eliot made a face Quentin couldn’t read, somewhere between a smile and a wince. Maybe his throat still hurt from the choking. “We learned a lot from each other,” he said.

That was sweet of him. Eliot was being sweet, and Quentin was several stages past drunk but still lucid enough to be pretty sure he recognized a familiar shading in Eliot’s eyes, like Eliot too was remembering how their bodies knew each other, what they could do together if they were allowed. And he thought: why not? Alice was done, his life was in ruins, but he and Eliot had managed to leave everything heavy between them in the past. They weren’t going to ruin that with a little sex. Why the fuck not?

So he leaned over and kissed Eliot hard, and was validated when Eliot immediately kissed him back. God, Eliot was good at kissing. Quentin felt like he was seventeen, that sudden careening sense that his body was one long nerve and everything Eliot was doing with his tongue and his lips and the catch of his teeth was happening simultaneously through his chest and down his spine and in his dick. He scooted over so he could crawl into Eliot’s lap and give Eliot easier access for manhandling him with those gigantic hands. Fingers cupping the back of his neck, Eliot’s stupidly elegant shoulders under his palms. Eliot making soft hungry noises into his mouth. This was the _perfect_ way to get his mind off the Alice thing.

Eliot broke the kiss and leaned back a little, looking up at him with a bizarrely serious expression on his face. “Q — are you sure?”

Quentin smiled. That was nice of him. To make sure that Quentin wasn’t about to impale his own heart on an idiotic decision after a sudden break-up and like three entire bottles of wine. It was considerate, in the way Eliot knew how to be as a gracious host: thinking ahead, asking good questions. But Quentin was fine. They were friends. Friends who happened to know how to get each other absurdly, world-shatteringly turned on, who didn’t usually do that because, like, complicated, but — he’d dumped his girlfriend. Also he’d died. He was due a couple freebies. “Yeah, El,” he said. “I’m sure. I mean —” He laughed, waggling his eyebrows, because the whole thing now seemed so stupid. “I kind of _did_ break up with the love of my life today because of you.” Then he kissed Eliot again, to show that he meant it: kissing him deep and long, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt to open it up so he could bite along Eliot’s collarbone where he knew it made him go weak, grinding eagerly into him, kissing his mouth again while fisting his hair into his hands. “See?” he whispered into Eliot’s ear, letting him feel the heat of his breath and listening with satisfaction to the little sigh he made. “I’m very sure.” He sucked into the side of Eliot’s neck a bit. “Are _you_ sure?”

“Yeah,” Eliot said, voice husky — Quentin shivered to hear it — “yeah, Q, I’m fucking sure.”

And then they were off: stripping each other roughly, hands frantic for touch, pressing quick and hot against each other to feel the heat of skin on skin. Eliot stood and pulled Quentin to his feet just long enough to squeeze his ass hard before shoving him backwards onto the bed and, Jesus, that sent him somewhere he fucking wanted to be. Eliot tossing him around like a goddamn action figure. That was even better than the chem lab dream.

All of it was: Eliot pinned him by the wrists and murmured “God, I could keep you here forever,” possessive like he sometimes got, and Quentin’s hips jerked upward while he blurted out “So fucking tie me in place, then,” and Eliot’s eyes went wide while he started muttering something about looking for his scarves and Quentin told him “What, no, that’ll take too long, just — look, I wore my Converse, just use those, they’re down there, see?”Ten minutes later his wrists were attached to the bed posts and Eliot’s giant dick (yep: _just_ as big as he remembered, how was that _possible_ ) was spurting come into his needy mouth. They resurrected Dwayne and Ivan, sullen Brooklynites mutually resentful of their shared attraction and prone to fucking in the back office while Dwayne (Eliot) spanked Ivan (Quentin) and said he should really just fire him for constant overpouring, _do you think we’re running a microbrew charity for bike messengers who spent their last dollars on flannel?_ Quentin came once fucking into Eliot’s face while Eliot lay on his back in front of the fireplace and again into Eliot’s stupidly huge hand while Eliot fucked him from behind on the footstool and again without touching himself while Eliot pinned him down and whispered relentlessly about how filthy and perfect Quentin was and again in Eliot’s ass while Eliot rode him chanting _fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck_ over and over like some weirdly horny Gregorian monk. Just _dripping_ with sweat. Little rivers of it all along his face and his sticky hair. Why was that so hot?

By the time they called it a night Quentin was too exhausted to see straight. Eliot curled around him on the bed and for a second he thought spooning might be the bridge too far that made it weird but he felt sleepy and safe and also too drunk to make it anywhere else, so he figured Eliot who had a lot more experience with this kind of night knew what he was doing and in the morning it would be fine. It wasn’t like cuddling would be the thing that killed their friendship. Eliot said something into his neck but Quentin couldn’t make it out. He wanted to ask him to repeat it but sleep was already tugging at his eyes.

_Now_

“And he’s so fucking full of himself,” Quentin says from the passenger seat. “It’s super aggravating.”

“So annoying,” Julia says. 

“Because that’s really what this comes down to, you know?” he says. “His fucking ego. Like, wow, you got me off, congratulations on hitting the same heights of achievement as an episode of _SVU_.” Julia gives him a sidelong look that’s halfway to horrified and he hurries to clarify: “Not for like the — sex crimes. I had a thing for that one D. A. they had for a while, what was her name? The blonde with the glasses.” As soon as the description is out of his mouth he wishes he had just said Mariska. Everyone loves Mariska.

“Alex?”

“If you’re making fun of me for having a type —”

“No, I think her name is Alex. I want to say Alex Cabot? Stephanie March’s character, right?”

“I don’t know, I don’t pay attention to that stuff.” Outside the sky is black, the long stretch of highway rendered even less scenic in the nighttime. The occasional backlit sign floats past them like a balloon on an invisible string. “It’s not like we did anything special. We were mammals acting like mammals, big deal. Like, sorry I made the mistake of thinking we were handling our shit like adults. Sorry I wasn’t expecting to get sucked into some high school angst about whether we _like_ -like each other.” Not that Quentin had any of that angst in high school, but Julia doesn’t point this out. “I can’t believe _I’m_ the chill one here.”

“You’re being very chill about this.”

He glares at her in the dark. “You know what I mean. I’m not — dredging up old bullshit to feed my addiction to melodrama.” He glances at his phone. Another hour before they’re set to arrive. “And then that _Eliot_ of all people would have the nerve to act like I’m all fucked up or whatever.”

“Hmm,” Julia says. “I’m gonna play my No Comment card on that one.”

“You think I’m fucked up?” he challenges. He doesn’t know why. Objectively he can see that he is not racking up the wellness points. He wants to make her say it, or not say it.

Julia says, “I think you’ve been through a lot, and it makes sense that you would need time to adjust.”

“So you think I should what, take the weekend and then call him and apologize?”

“I didn’t say that,” she says.

“But you were thinking it.”

“I was not.”

Quentin doesn’t have a comeback for that. Not that he should be looking for one, probably. “Well I’m not going to.”

“Okay.” Julia starts to pull into a gas station. “I’m going to fill up the tank, if you want to get up and stretch your legs for a sec.”

Quentin doesn’t move. “You know what I hate?”

“Eliot’s face, hair, voice, personality, life, choices?”

“Good guess,” Quentin acknowledges, “but no. I hate that the sex was actually incredible.”

“You have made that,” says Julia, “abundantly clear.”

_Before_

In the morning Quentin’s mouth tasted like death. Actually having died he was now qualified to say: it tasted worse than death. Like death had come into his mouth and then had food poisoning and puked all over everything. His head was — not happy. His whole body in fact was very, very mad at him for what he had done. Eliot was already awake next to him, sitting up. He looked like he was not preoccupied by the vicious maelstrom of nausea and pain racking his every internal organ and therefore Quentin hated him, just a bit. As a matter of principle. “Hey, Q?”

Quentin shut his eyes. “Why are you so loud.”

“Sorry,” Eliot said, whispering. “I just — look I know I should probably let you like, finish waking up and stuff, and, and we don’t have to talk through it all now —”

That was good news. Quentin didn’t think he could talk through anything now.

“— but I just, you were gone for so long, and I don’t want to waste any more time or, or ever leave you feeling anything other than totally sure again, so — so I just want to be clear that, like.” He swallowed. His eyes were very large. Like frogs, Quentin thought inanely. His tongue felt like sandpaper thrown in a blender with formaldehyde. “This is real, okay? I’m, I’m not taking anything back, or pushing you away, and I’m not scared anymore — I mean I am scared, I’m actually, like,” he laughed with eyes bright, “I’m fucking — terrified, but I’m done letting my fears ruin every good thing in my life. And that’s — you did that, Q. Really. You’re so — brave, and amazing, and you make me want to be — better, and I thought, I thought I’d lost my chance to be better for you, like that, and it’s — god, it feels like a fucking miracle that I didn’t, like the thousandth miracle I’ve had since you got back, and, um. I just didn’t want to wait any longer, to say that.”

“Okay,” Quentin managed. That was — nice? Eliot’s face looked like he had been saying something nice. Also like he might start crying. Maybe he was hungover after all. That made Quentin feel a little better.

“And I get,” Eliot went on, “I totally get that — you know, last night was last night, but if starting now you want to take things slower, because of the break-up, that’s fine. You know, whatever you want, I’m here for it.”

“Whatever I want,” Quentin said. He wanted: water, aspirin, a light switch that would turn off the sun, a time loop that would take him back to the previous evening and make him stop drinking maybe like three hours earlier, to die again but only temporarily. Sleep, that’s what that was called. He wanted to go back to sleep.

“Anything,” Eliot said. He was being very insistent. “Just — I know that it’s going to take work, but I’m ready to do it. I promise, Q. I’m not running away this time.”

“Cool,” Quentin said. He tried to nod, because the situation seemed to call for it. That was a mistake. He closed his eyes to make the world stop moving. While he was shuttered in the darkness he said, “Sorry if this is a dumb question, but uh. What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about — us, Q,” Eliot said. “Our — our relationship, our — well our love, I guess, although I totally understand if you’re not ready for that word yet. I know I’ve put you through a lot, and —”

“Wait.” He forced himself to open his eyes. The light hurt so bad. “What?”

“Uh…” Eliot looked unsure now. “I — you know, because we…”

“What did you think,” Quentin said slowly, “was happening last night?”

“I thought —” Eliot’s eyes were clouding over while he tried to keep his face calm. “I thought we — we kissed, and we — did a _lot_ of other things, and we like. I don’t know, reunited? Found our way back after toils and snares? Uncrossed our star-crossed path? Finally lived the truth of our feelings for each other?”

Well this was — not great. “Yeah, so… I didn’t exactly…” Was this really his life? Was he really having to dump both of his insanely hot exes in twenty-four hours? That was… _so_ much more sexual success than he had ever thought he would achieve in his life, god. Lonely _is_ the head that wears the fucking crown.

“Wait,” Eliot said. His face was falling in slow motion. “Are you saying you — last night you weren’t —”

“That is,” Quentin said, “what I’m trying to say, yes. I thought — sorry, El. I thought we were on the same page.”

“And what page was that?”

“The page where we were just — you know, two outrageously sexually compatible people with a complicated past who decided to blow off some steam.”

Eliot was shaking his head. “I don’t — you told me that you broke up with Alice because of me, what the fuck was I supposed to think?”

Quentin winced. “So I can see how that would be confusing, yeah. It wasn’t like — see, I had this sex dream, where you were like, maybe part-vampire, and we were in my high school, right, and what I think it was _actually_ about was my unconscious telling me that I was still with Alice because I was clinging to the past —”

“Jesus fuck,” Eliot said. “What about — I mean I fucking — I told you I loved you, I —” Eliot was staring at him disbelievingly.

“Shit, really?” Quentin felt a squirming in his gut that might have been guilt or might have been nausea. Or, like. Por qué no los dos?

“Unbelievable.” Eliot shook his head. “You — what, you didn’t notice? Or you just didn’t care? That I was fucking baring my soul —”

“I’m sorry, are you mad at me?” Quentin said. “In case you didn’t notice then and somehow aren’t noticing now, I was pretty fucking hammered last night. I thought you were too.”

“I was,” Eliot said, “ _contrary_ to my actual plans for the evening, for the record —”

“Oh right,” Quentin said, “you’re like reformed or something now so you were just drinking your face off as a big _favor_ for poor sad fucked up Q —”

“Yeah, actually, that’s exactly what I’m saying — what the fuck, Quentin, that’s exactly what _you_ were saying —”

“Look all I was trying to say _now_ is,” Quentin said, “that I wasn’t exactly in a detail-oriented state of mind last night.”

“Details!” Eliot gave a bitter laugh. “I’m so glad to hear that my fucking confession of the heart rates as a _detail_. Like saying _I am fucking in love with you_ is name of some fucking Star Trek droid.”

“They don’t _have_ droids in Star Trek. And what do you want me to say, Eliot?” Quentin really, really wished he could sit up in indignation for this, but wow it was really, really not happening. “Sorry that I wasn’t trying to start a new relationship while I was drunk off my ass?”

“Well the last time you got drunk and kissed me it turned out you got mad at me for assuming you _weren’t_ starting a relationship, so I thought —”

“Oh did I?” Quentin shot back. “I’m sorry, I thought that _wasn’t me_.”

Eliot made a furious tight line with his mouth and for a moment Quentin enjoyed the silence of his defeat. Then he felt bad, kind of. “El —” he started. But then up came the familiar inner lurching and he (“Oh God —”) rolled over just in time to hurl all over the floor by the bed.

It was a bad one. Lots of dry heaving when he’d expelled everything solid inside him and everything liquid inside him and possibly some esophageal lining, just for good measure. Eliot gently rubbed his back through the end of it. When he thought he’d finished he tried to clean up but his hands refused to work the right way and Eliot did it instead. He lay back down with his eyes on the ceiling. After a few moments of watching it swim in his vision he turned onto his side.

Eliot had softened. Like watching Quentin puke his guts out and then some had stirred up some pity in him that reminded him that he was, apparently, in love? _The fuck?_ Quentin rubbed his eyes.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Eliot said. “I — I was feeling really vulnerable and defensive and I lashed out, but. Obviously the way I handled this wasn’t ideal, and — and I’m sorry. You don’t — you don’t owe me anything, god, not after everything I’ve pulled, and — whatever your feelings are, your friendship means more to me than just about anything, so. So I hope I haven’t — fucked that up too bad.”

“Well,” Quentin said, “aren’t you mature.” It came out nasty. Actually it started nasty too. Eliot was being very mature. It made Quentin want to fucking hit him.

Eliot smiled, kind of sadly. “I started therapy when you were gone. I guess some of it’s helping.”

“Therapy’s for pussies,” Quentin said.

“Hm.” Eliot nodded. “I feel like we should unpack that.”

“Hard pass.”

“Q, I —” Eliot brought his hand very near to Quentin’s face and then pulled back. “I know I’m probably not the ideal candidate to say this, given — the present circumstance — but I am… I mean should I be worried about you?”

“Why,” Quentin said, “because I got wasted and fucked someone I shouldn’t? I thought in your house that was just a day ending in _y_.”

“That’s really unfair, Quentin,” Eliot said quietly.

Maybe it was. But — “I don’t give a shit.”

Eliot looked — sad, which — _uuuuugggggghhhhhh_. “Okay, well. I know you don’t mean that —”

“Oh good,” Quentin said, “just when I thought things were really bad, Eliot to the rescue, once again explaining to me what I do or don’t fucking mean.”

Eliot closed his eyes. It was possible that Quentin was being horrible. He tried to find the part of him that would care but he got an out of office email with no return date. “I’m trying to say,” Eliot said, “that I care about you.”

If he hadn’t felt like his body was held together with gum and dental floss he would have laughed, because it was — like, now? Eliot wanted to do this _now_? “I cared about you, too,” he said instead. “I cared so hard I got myself killed. So maybe you can understand why I’m not exactly jumping to dive back into our grand romance.” That wasn’t exactly how it had happened, logistically. But that was how it felt, when he remembered it: like inside him there had been a sun, warm and bright, and then it had gone out.

Eliot bowed his head, apologetic. “I can’t ever say enough how sorry I am for —”

“Fuck your sorries,” Quentin spat. God that felt good to say. Like he was an actual living person. “Fuck your sorries, and fuck your caring.” He forced himself upright, then onto his feet. He was shaking. Probably from the hangover he was shaking. “What the fuck did caring about you ever get me, huh? Headaches and stress and, and hangovers and fucking — months of torture by a fucking demigod, and what was the point? Of fucking any of it? What was _any_ of that for?” He felt that picked-scab feeling in his whole body, sick and alive and itching to see the blood. “You know, I came here yesterday looking for some bullshit distraction from a break-up with someone who actually gave enough of a fuck to tell me she cared _before_ I died, because I thought I’d finally figured out the one thing I could count on you for, and you fucked that up for me too. So fuck your apologies, and fuck your _I’m in love with you_ , and fuck you. I’m out. Go cry about it to your therapist.”

Eliot looked — whatever. He deserved it, for — it should have been simple. Quentin had been so good, for so long. He heard Eliot call his name as he walked out of the room but he didn’t turn around.

_Now_

As they turn off I-95 Quentin says, “What is wrong with me, Jules?”

“This feels like a loaded question,” she says.

He’s slumped against the door with his forehead resting on the passenger seat, watching the view fill up with the lights of Boston. He feels exhausted and he wants to smoke but he left his cigarettes in his bag in the trunk so instead he’s eating a package of salt and vinegar chips he bought at the gas station. Stinging his tongue. “There were two people who were in love with me,” he says. “And not just any two people, I mean, Alice is Alice, and Eliot is psychologically allergic to the printed word but he’s actually an insanely talented magician, he just puts all of his energy into stupid party tricks. If he didn’t have zero ambition and the attention span of a drunk toddler he could have written half a spellbook by now. And have you _seen_ them? Alice looks like a drawing of a sexy librarian made by a thirteen-year-old boy, and Eliot is seven hundred feet tall with eyes the size of grapefruits and a dick you could hang a flag on. I mean it’s _so_ big, Julia. It’s _so_ —”

“Yeah,” Julia says, “I’ve learned a lot about Eliot’s dick in the past seventy-two hours.”

“I got two _hot geniuses_ ,” Quentin says, “to fall in love with me. With _me_. Me, like, Quentin-me. Me, the guy whose first blow job came from a girl who got confused about who brought the drugs to the party. The guy ranked _most virginal_ in the senior slambook. Did they ever catch who did that?”

“I think it was Blake Epstein who made the copies,” Julia says. “That guy was a douchebag.”

“Didn’t you go out with him in ninth grade?”

“Like, once,” she says, rolling her eyes. “He took me to some World War II movie and tried to slip his hand down my underwear while we were sitting next to these senior citizens who had probably fought in the war themselves.”

“Ew,” Quentin says, briefly distracted from his self-pity. “You never told me that.”

She shrugs. “I didn’t want to make it a thing. It was fine. I dumped my soda on his crotch and walked out.” Quentin takes a moment to savor that mental image.

“I know it doesn’t really matter that they’re hot,” he concedes. “I know that’s not what’s important. The real story is that two people were in love with me, who I thought I had been in love with, and I just — threw them away. Like, the fuck? Do I _want_ to be alone?”

“I know I keep saying this, but you have been through some insane shit. I don’t think you can expect yourself to be operating normally right now.”

“Maybe.” They stop at a red light. Quentin watches a crew of teenagers cross the street, so carefree they seem almost immune to gravity. “Or maybe this is my new normal. I don’t _feel_ …” He trails off, unable to find a word that fits.

“You don’t feel…”

 _Anything_ , he almost says, but thinks better of it. Instead he shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Julia looks back over her shoulder before heading into a right turn. “If you don’t know what you feel, that sounds like something you might want to talk to a professional about.”

“I’m not going to therapy,” he says flatly. “I’m fine.”

“You _just_ said —”

“I’m being dramatic,” he says. “I’ve had two break-ups this week, cut me some slack.”

Julia takes a long, deep breath, her mouth a careful line.

_Before_

“Jesus fuck,” Julia said.

“I’ve been getting that a lot,” Quentin said. “Are you sure you don’t want any?”

Quentin had stumbled through the halls of Whitespire back into the penthouse and basically army-crawled to Kady’s room to plea for a dose of her hangover cure. They kept a stash of it in the fridge, but he’d never managed to work the activation spell. Once she’d relented he’d snuck a shower before Alice noticed he was home and then fled the property and texted Julia begging her to meet him somewhere he could update her on the whole sorry story. Somewhere downtown. An establishment, downtown. A bar. He was drunk again. But in his defense: his entire stupid life. Anyway it was a bar with food, at least. He’d eaten a cheeseburger while he was waiting. Then he’d ordered a plate of nachos for them to split, but Julia said she wasn’t hungry.

“I just ate,” she said. “I mean, like — damn, Q.”

“Yeah,” Quentin said. “I’m having a real Lemon-it’s-Wednesday kind of week.”

“I know what you’re saying,” Julia said, with a crooked smile. “But it literally is Tuesday.”

Quentin buried his face in his hands. “Fuck my life.”

“So,” she said. “Do you think you’re going to talk to Eliot again?”

“I would literally rather die,” Quentin said. “But I would literally rather die than do a lot of things, so that’s not saying much.”

“Not funny,” she said.

“I’m pretty sure it was.” He scooped up some extra cheese with a chip and popped it into his mouth. “Anyway, Margo has probably already set the clock to like, decapitate me if I so much as dare to show my face over there.” That kind of sucked. He liked Margo. She liked him, in her scary, hostile way, which wasn’t nothing, because she didn’t really like people. But she and Eliot were a matched set. Which was mostly thanks to Eliot’s codependency issues so, really, this was totally Eliot’s fault too. He took a sip of his — martini? Why was he drinking a martini? He hated martinis. He drained the rest to get it over with.

Julia pursed her lips disapprovingly. He had spent more than a decade hiding from that face and now he found it didn’t bother him at all. That part of him had apparently not made it back from the Underworld. It made him feel kind of superpowered. “So clearly —”

“I’m fine, Jules.” He didn’t know why he said that. The facts on the ground were not in his favor. But he wanted to argue for it anyway. Like he would feel better if he could hype himself into believing it was true, even for a few minutes.

Unfortunately Julia knew him too well to take the bait. “I’m not engaging with that.”

“You used to be fun.”

“Clearly you need… something,” Julia said. “And you have, in rapid succession, exiled yourself from both the penthouse and Whitespire. So…”

He hadn’t thought about it in those terms, which was stupid because: duh. “Shit. Maybe I can convince Fogg to put me up in some spare housing at Brakebills for a while. I heard Todd got a real job so they might need some help in the registrar’s office.”

“Or,” Julia said, slowly. “A lot of hedges still have Reed’s Mark who can’t make it to New York. Kady has the removal pretty much perfected — it runs as a two-person spell for safety, and she’s been working on contacting hubs and safehouses across the country so that someone can go, free up a couple locals, and then teach them the spell to take care of the others in their area.”

“Someone,” Quentin said, comprehension seeping in. “Like…”

Julia raised an eyebrow. “You think you can handle a road trip, Coldwater?”

A road trip. Away from New York and Fillory, Alice and Eliot. The entire life he had detonated like a building condemned. “How soon can we leave?”

_Now_

They’re scheduled to meet the next set of hedges in the morning, so they get ready for bed pretty much as soon as they arrive at the hotel. Brushing his teeth in a T-shirt and sweats over the smooth white sink Quentin remembers a weekend trip, the year his mom made him sign up for Model UN ostensibly to pad his college apps but really because she thought being more involved would keep him from relapsing. Some backroom finagling of secret roommate swaps he didn’t totally follow had led to Julia slipping through his door after room checks so his assigned roommate could go sleep with his girlfriend down the hall. They’d never stopped having sleepovers but something about the new adult-feeling context of a hotel room at a conference and the sight of her giggling at her own illicitness in a fuzzy purple bathrobe and the fact that he was six months out of the hospital and more convinced than ever of his permanent exclusion from the world of romance came together in the cauldron of his raging hormones to make the night excruciating. Hours on sleepless hours of stewing in jealousy for the couple fucking (he imagined) like rabbits down the hall and for Julia so blithely content in her own skin and for every guy that ever had or ever would touch her. Infuriated by the sight of her slender back under her pajamas rising and falling with her breath.

He spits and rinses the mint taste out of his mouth. At least there are some things he’s grateful to have left in the past.

Julia’s already turned the light out when he gets into his bed. He slips under the sterile covers and lies on his back and closes his eyes and tries to breath deeply. But he can’t sleep. He can’t stop thinking about what he’s done. Alice’s face, Eliot’s eyes. How fast it all happened.

How easy it was.

He opens his eyes. His chest is burning. “Hey, Jules?” he says into the dark. She doesn’t respond and he shifts onto his side and tries, “Are you awake?”

“I’m trying really hard not to be,” she says, but cheerfully. She slides her eye mask up to her forehead and turns her face to look at him. “What’s up?”

“Do you think I’m a sociopath?”

She quirks her mouth to the side, playfully reproving. “I feel like this could have waited for morning.”

“I’m serious, Jules,” he insists.

She considers him for a moment, flicks on the green lamp attached to the wall by her bed. In the light he can see that her eye mask is purple, with cartoonishly long sleeping eyelashes embroidered on the front. “Q, obviously not. You know the answer to that is no.”

“But I mean —” He tries to swallow back some of his anxiety. “I just blew things up in less than two days with two of the people I thought I cared about most in the world. And I don’t — I’m not like, _thrilled_ , but I don’t feel —” There should be something. There should be something else there, like a bruise he goes to touch only to discover air. Empty space that isn’t even him. “When you went to the twenty-third timeline, and I didn’t have my shade, you knew that if I could feel what I’d actually done I’d kill myself.” Julia flinches, like she feels guilty for — what, knowing him? “But now I — I don’t even…”

“Q,” she says, not ungently, “have you murdered someone and not told me about it?”

“No, but —”

“Are you planning to murder someone between now and tomorrow morning?”

“No —”

“Then I think you can rest easy,” she says, “and try to get some sleep. You’ve been through a lot lately.”

“But shouldn’t that make it feel _worse?_ ” he insists. He doesn’t know what he’s after. He wants her to — agree, or admit it, like that will — “And you’ve been like, so supportive and I’ve spent all day just babbling at you about the bullshit of my love life, I mean — God, I’m a terrible friend. I haven’t even asked you how you are.” He props himself up on his elbow to lean forward. “How are you, Julia?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Oh, you know. Doing pretty well.”

“That’s good,” Quentin says. “I’m really glad.”

“Except I have this roommate,” she goes on, “who can’t go to sleep because he’s convinced he’s a sociopath, so now _I_ can’t go to sleep, and we have to be at a safehouse in Somerville at like ten tomorrow.”

Quentin swallows. “He sounds like kind of a dick.”

“He just went through a break-up,” Julia says, half-smiling. “He has his good qualities, too.”

“I dunno,” Quentin says. “That’s pretty messed up of him, keeping you awake like that.”

“Q....”

“Sounds like maybe the kind of thing a sociopath would do.”

“Go to sleep, Quentin.”

He takes a deep breath and nods at her. Satisfied, she turns the light off and puts her mask back on and curls up, dark hair splayed on her pillow. But he doesn’t go to sleep. He waits for her breathing to even out and then throws up a silencing ward so he doesn’t disturb her when he slips out to the door to go smoke on the sidewalk.


	2. Chapter 2

_Boston, MA_

While Julia’s out on her morning run (which, and _he’s_ the one who hates himself?) Quentin tries to jerk off in the shower without thinking about Eliot’s ass — _nope_ — or Alice’s thighs — _stop that_ — or the rough way Eliot said his name when he was about to come in his mouth — _abort, abort, abort_ — like if he can still give himself an orgasm without them that’ll prove he’s fine or at least not doomed. Like if he can emerge from this a person still capable of sexual arousal then it wasn’t a mistake. But he’s fisting himself hard and fast and fucking endlessly and none of his old standbys are doing it — not Tina Fey wielding a pair of handcuffs — not Zachary Quinto holding office hours as an English professor, a little too grateful for his best student to distract him from grading — not whatshername on _Law and Order_ , Alex apparently, not that he’s allowed to call her by her first name, closing the door behind him and coolly removing his tie to slip it around his wrists — Jesus, has he always been this predictable? —

Julia gives three quick raps on the door.

“Just a minute!” he calls out, trying to sound as normal as possible.

 _Focus up, Coldwater_ , he tells himself — something really reliable that involves no dark chest hair or soft shoulders arching — so he’s polishing cocktail glasses on Coruscant, five standard minutes from the end of his shift at Dex’s, and in walks a guy with a wariness in his stance and a blaster on his hip. Can it be — Han Solo? Notorious smuggler and first-class pilot? The envy of every wannabe flyboy in the Core Worlds region? Quentin never thought he’d so much as lay an eye on him, and definitely had no idea he’d be so tall — strong in a quiet, coiled way — hair falling in his eyes and mouth curling into a permanent smirk. He orders just a Chandrilan tea and there’s a drawl in his voice that does something to Quentin’s gut. He knows he’s being stupid but — what’s the harm? _Excuse me, sir_ , he says, blushing a little at the way Solo’s smirk deepens just a bit at the title, _I’m fascinated by Corellian engineering, and my shift is nearly up — you probably have somewhere to go, but if you wouldn’t mind showing a planet-locked barkeep around the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs —_ Solo studies him, a gleam in his eye. _I do have somewhere to go_ , he says, _but something tells me you could make it worth my while_. Quentin swallows, suddenly certain that he’s in for much more than a tour of the infamous freighter. _Yes, sir_ , he says, and Solo smiles. _Why don’t you change out of that uniform and meet me —_

More knocking, louder this time. “Quentin, if you’re jerking it in there, either hit the pause button or hurry up, I gotta pee and take out my tampon.”

Which just makes him think of — his fingers covered in sticky red smearing all over Alice’s pale skin and red rolling down from her hips pumping on his cock and her face mesmerized by the mess and — fuck — _“Fuck —”_

Half a minute later he opens the door with a thick white towel around his waist and avoids eye contact as he steps out of the bathroom while Julia, still sweaty from her run, chirps “Thanks!” on her way in.

He’s dressed and sitting on the edge of his bed by the time she reemerges in a shiny blue robe, hair wrapped up in a towel. Still feeling sullen he says, “You didn’t have to like, _listen_.”

“Uhh, I wasn’t _trying_ to,” she says, “but this is a cheap hotel and _someone_ didn’t bother with a silencing ward, so.” She raises her eyebrows as if to say, _What could I do?_

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

Julia unzips a compartment of her suitcase to pull out a hair dryer. “I gotta say, I really thought the tampon thing would be a boner-killer. Congratulations on being enlightened.”

“Alice was really into period sex,” he mumbles. “I think it was like a power thing for her.”

Julia makes a face, then shrugs. “I could see it.” She shakes out her hair and plugs in the dryer, turning it on with its high-pitched whir.

Quentin says, “I’m gonna die alone.”

Julia turns to him, leaning her head to the side as she brushes through her hair. “Q…”

“Alice and Eliot,” he continues, “are probably off already having rebound sex with — I don’t know, like, a sexy mathematician and a — fisherman of the — Northern Isles, but like a really burly one, and even though I’m arguably _twice_ as heartbroken and therefore deserve _double_ the rebound, I can’t even console myself with meaningless sex. I’m gonna live a sexless life while Eliot becomes the Fillorian Lord Byron, and I’m gonna adopt a cat and name her Emily Dickinson like Liz Lemon in that one episode of _30 Rock_ where she gave up, and then I’m gonna die alone.”

Jules presses her lips together. “There’s a lot there that I’m not totally sure…”

“No, see, because I already beat the odds, Jules,” he says. “I died with a gorgeous, brilliant girlfriend at my side. And I just feel like, statistically, lightning doesn’t strike twice. Especially amazing, incredible lightning doesn’t strike twice in a building scientifically engineered to be as lightning-proof as possible.”

Julia shuts the dryer off.

“Okay, so…” She walks over to sit beside him on the bed. “It’s been a long time since things were weird between us, right?”

Quentin startles. “When were things weird between us?”

“Quentin.” She tilts her chin down to look up at him with a _come on now_ expression. He crosses his arms, humiliation already brewing under his skin, and she sighs. “When you… you know, had a thing for me, or whatever, and —”

“Okay that wasn’t — I didn’t — it wasn’t like a _thing_ -thing, it was like a, I was going through puberty and you were the only girl that talked to me thing, and — wait you _knew_?” He rounds on her, feeling suddenly betrayed.

“I didn’t — _know-_ know —”

“What the fuck is _know-_ know —”

Julia rolls her eyes. “Well it’s kind of like when someone has a _thing_ -thing —”

“Point taken,” he huffs, “but — for the record I worked like really hard to make sure you didn’t know —”

“I know, and I — look, I was a weird tomboy with one friend and then I woke up one day and I had boobs and things were fucking weird with me and _everyone_ because the world is a fucking _nightmare_ , Quentin, and I would have had to be a _literal alien_ who had never experienced Earth culture before not to wonder sometimes if you had ever thought about sleeping with me, okay?” She shakes her head as if to clear it. “Plus, you hated like every dude I ever went out with.”

“Okay,” Quentin says, “but you went out with some some pretty terrible dudes —”

Julia gives him a withering look. “Really? Is that really what you want to focus on right now?”

He looks down at his lap, chastened. “No, sorry.”

Julia’s posture eases. “My point is — I’m not saying anything was your fault, okay? It just — sucks. High school sucks and puberty sucks and patriarchy sucks and being a teenage girl sucks and boys suck the most, but you don’t suck, and it honestly meant more than I could say at the time to have a guy I knew I could always count on to talk to me like an actual person, so. I love you, and that was a thousand years ago, and we’re — cool. Yes?”

Quentin takes a deep breath to rid himself of the last dregs of embarrassment. “Yes. We are… we’re very cool.” He nods. “We’re like Liz and Jack in that _30 Rock_ episode where they go to Florida and it turns out Jack’s mom was sleeping with a woman before she died and back in New York Tracy and Jenna get the show sued so that Kenneth can stay honest.”

“...Sure.” Julia peers at him. “You’ve been watching that show a lot, huh?”

He shrugs. “It’s comforting.”

“Okay, well.” She smiles, visibly resetting. “So since we’re cool, I am going to tell you something that I have wanted to tell you for a very long time, okay?” She places her hands on his shoulders and gives him a gentle squeeze. “You, Quentin Coldwater, are not an unattractive person. Just like, objectively. You have a totally solid build, and clear skin, and a really great smile, with those dimples, and eyelashes I have frankly always been jealous of, and hair…” She tucks a strand behind his ear. “We can do something about your hair.”

“What’s wrong with my hair?” he asks, as though it hasn’t been over a year since he’s gotten it cut.

“There are professionals for that, actually,” Julia says. “Like you can pay someone to make your hair look good.”

“I know what barbers are, Julia.”

“I’m talking about stylists,” she says.

“What’s the difference?”

“I’m saying you’ve got a lot to work with. And also —” She shrugs, laughing a little. “You’re a 26-year-old guy, so the bar is like, on the ground. I mean have you met men lately, Quentin? Do you talk to them?”

He takes a moment to consider the question. “I actually… kind of don’t?” Not that he talks much to anyone, but when it comes to guys it’s really just Eliot. Or was.

“Right,” Julia says, “because they’re the worst. I mean it’s grim out there. Like really dismal. Men are so bad that Josh gets ass like _crazy_. Is your self-esteem really so bad that you think you are _objectively_ less good-looking than Josh?”

“That feels like a mean question,” Quentin says. “But, I mean, no.”

“Exactly,” she says brightly. “But he has no problem finding someone to hook up with every time he’s in the city alone, because he is a man in his twenties who is nice to people and showers regularly.”

“Wait,” Quentin says, frowning, “I thought Josh was with Margo.”

“Well,” Julia says, “she was trying monogamy for a while for his sake, but she decided that wasn’t her vibe, so now he’s trying an open relationship for her sake. Technically they set a six-month trial period on it, but something tells me he’s going to find a way to live with the enormous burden of dating the High King of Fillory and still being able to have a threesome on a Saturday night.” She’s smiling when she says this but there’s a wrinkle in her brow, like she’s confused. Which maybe she should be, because — since when is Julia giving him news about Margo? 

“Right,” he says, to cover for not knowing. Did he know, at some point? He feels like maybe he should have known. Like Margo would have told him, or — did tell him, or — he picks at his cuticle.

“Seriously, Q,” Julia says. “You put on some decent clothes, you let an expert make some decisions about your hair, you ask some basic questions — questions like, what is your name, and do you have any hobbies — you are… ahead of the curve. The rebound sex is out there for you, if you want it.”

He considers what she’s telling him. He doesn’t really believe her but he can’t find anything to argue with. “Do you really think so?”

“I really do,” she says. “You can do this, if it’s like, something you think would help.”

 _Help_. Help him fucking _what_? Eliot’s face swims into his mind, the last time he saw it, wounded and — “Yeah, okay,” he says. “I guess you might be right.”

-

The safehouse in Somerville is a ramshackle colonial two-story painted light blue which looks to be held together by magic that has long since started to fray; between that and the relief on the face of the woman who opens the door, Quentin has the sense they’re freeing up the house’s occupants just in time to prevent it from collapse. “This is very Harry Potter,” Julia whispers as they climb a staircase whose steps seem to be flickering in and out of disrepair, and Quentin gives her a smile.

There are maybe a dozen hedges upstairs, plus a few accredited magicians who seem to have come by for moral support or in anticipation of the communal buzz that follows removal. Once the last hedge is clear of the mark, a cheer goes up among the group, and a tall man in a faded pink T-shirt brings out champagne and plastic cups over the protests of some staid-looking companion that it’s not even noon.

“Special occasion, Gary,” the champagne bearer says, “we can do magic for the first time in like a year.”

“Yeah,” says a woman with long dreads, “so Stephen, you’re going to get right on fixing the gutters, right, just like always?” There’s a laugh among the crowd.

Stephen pours them each some champagne with an exaggerated bow for Quentin and a wink for Julia and they tap their cups together for a mock toast. Julia settles easily into inquiring about the history of a local collaborative moon ritual which from what Quentin picks up originated as some nature worship thing but now is more like a magic-infused Rocky Horror with a rotating slate of movies. Quentin hangs peaceably at the periphery of the circle gathered around her, half-listening, scanning the other clusters of conversation in the room: gangly guy in stripes spinning marbles through the air while friends toss up obstacles, increasingly heated debate about which Massachusetts safehouses throw the best parties. He gets a weird flash of déjà vu catching sight of a trio huddled in the corner, whispering and glancing at him like they’re looking but don’t want him to notice, and remembers the girls at the house in Providence. He brings his focus back to Julia, not wanting them to catch him looking. Julia would probably say he’s being paranoid and he doesn’t actually care what they think, but he wonders idly if whatever they’re seeing is something he should worry about.

“So did you grow up in the area?” Julia is asking Gary.

“No,” Gary says, “I moved to Boston for college. Well, not _Boston_ , exactly, but I went to school _near_ Boston…”

“Hi, sorry —”

Quentin turns. The trio has come over to him, clustered together and shifting their weight on their feet. Up close they look to be about college age, maybe a bit older, two girls side by side and a guy close behind them. “Hey,” he says. “What’s up?” Belatedly he figures he should smile.

“So —” The shorter girl, a white brunette with an olive-green knit cap, glances at her friends before continuing. “Sorry if this is weird, but — you said your name was Quentin, right? Like — Quentin Coldwater?”

“Uh,” Quentin says, surprised, “yeah, that’s me.” He looks over to Julia, who’s taken notice of their approach, and shoots her a silent question. She responds with a tiny shrug.

“Like —” The guy leans in, pitching his voice low. “Like _the_ Quentin Coldwater?”

Quentin blinks, confused. “Well, it’s not a very common name…”

The taller girl, brown-skinned and wearing a faded band shirt, whispers, “Like Quentin Coldwater from the Seam?”

“Oh,” Quentin says, realizing. His neck feels hot, suddenly. “You guys, uh. Heard about that.”

_—It goes bad fast here._

“ _Everyone_ heard about that,” says Knit Cap; then looking stricken she adds, “As they should have!” Like she’s worried he’ll think she’s dissing the hard-won notoriety he apparently has. He feels like he’s swallowing more than the usual amount.

_—Quentin I think you need to —_

_—You always were smarter than the books gave you credit for._

“You must be so sick of people saying this,” says the guy, “but we really can’t thank you enough for what you did.”

Quentin almost laughs at the image that paints of his resurrected self as a person who goes outside and does things and talks to people. “It was really nothing.” Words aren’t filling up his brain the right way. He feels like that wasn’t the right thing to say but the only alternative popping up is _Please — I’d kill myself for free!_ , which — doesn’t seem better. His mouth is open. He closes his mouth.

_—You’ll go down as a hero. I’ll make sure of it._

_And Quentin had thought —_

“What you sacrificed for everyone,” says Band Shirt, awe written on her face, “I can’t imagine how much strength that took.”

_—Take her. Do it. Now._

“Seriously,” says Knit Cap, eyes solemn, “you are so unbelievably brave.”

“Uh,” says Quentin. The room feels very small. He feels like he’s supposed to thank them and maybe then they’ll go away but the image of it makes him want to run hyena-shrieking through a window. Glass catching on his skin in hatchmark patterns, bones breaking on the pavement below. Neck twisting on impact.

“You guys are _so_ sweet,” Julia croons, stepping forward to intercede with a hand laid protectively on his arm, “but we actually have to get going because we have an appointment. But Gary has my info if you want to get in touch, okay?”

Somehow she extricates them from the group with all the requisite politeness and guides him outside. At least he assumes she does; the next time he’s fully conscious of his surroundings they’re on a sidewalk corner standing by the parked car, several blocks away. Across the street he sees a row of houses, pedestrians passing in their spring jackets. A woman walking a Great Dane.

“Jules,” he says to test out his voice. It seems to be operational.

She looks at his face. “Hey. You okay?” Her tone is light with something deeper beneath it. He has the sense it’s not the first time she’s asked him.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m…” Quentin blinks, shakes his head. He feels like he’s waking up.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t realize the story had spread like that. I would’ve warned you, if —”

“It’s fine,” he says, “it’s fine, I’m fine, I’m —” He closes his mouth, shakes his head.

Julia is biting her lip. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” she says. “I don’t want you to —”

“Seriously, it’s okay,” he says. “I’m just gonna —” He fishes a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and takes one out. His hands are shaking. Why are his hands shaking? Before putting them back he holds the pack out to Julia as an offer.

“Oh, no thanks,” Julia says. “I quit, remember?”

“Oh. Right,” he says, trying to hide his surprise. “Sorry.” Does he remember that? He must remember that. She sounds like she’s sure she told him, and — and she would have told him, and he would — remember, so — he’s just a little freaked. He just wasn’t expecting it. He lights his cigarette and takes a drag, then another, feeling himself relax. “Really, I’m fine, Jules.” He’s relieved that his voice sounds more controlled. “I wasn’t expecting it to come up, is all, and obviously it’s not, like, my favorite memory, but —”

_—It goes bad fast here._

“— now I know that the information is out there, so. It’ll be fine.” He inhales, breathes out smoke. Across the street a delivery guy in a neon safety jacket stops his bike outside the door of a pale yellow house, checks the receipt stapled to the bag, rings the bell.

“You never really talked about it,” Julia says in that soft tone people use when they mean you should talk about it more.

He shrugs. “What’s there to say? It was weird and terrifying and violent, and then six months later you guys brought me back from the dead.”

“You made a choice that —”

“I made a choice that spared the whole world a lot of fucked up shit,” he says, more harshly than he intends. He takes a breath before continuing. “And, yeah, it was probably easier for me personally, on that specific day of my life, to — make that call, than it would be for most people, but — it’s not like I walked in planning to die. Everett showed up, and there was no other way.”

_—Take her. Do it. Now._

Julia looks like she’s trying to find the right words for what she wants to say, but Quentin doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. He says, maybe a little too bright, “So you were saying I need a haircut. You think we could maybe fit it in after lunch?”

He can track a flicker of disappointment on her face, which annoys him because — what exactly does she want to hear from him? What is she hoping will happen if he — He watches her choose to place something to the side, not forgotten but for the time being in the past. It’ll have to do. “Sure, if you want to,” she says, putting on a smile. “Why don’t you drive, and I can start looking for places online.” He smiles in return and puts out his cigarette before getting in the car.

-

They find a magician-run salon in Back Bay with a last-minute opening that afternoon. While Julia engages the stylist in a conversation about the vision here involving a lot of hand gestures, Quentin sits in the tall chair with wet hair and plastic draped around his shoulder and studies himself in the mirror. There’s a part of him that can logically accept Julia’s point. Average proportions, inoffensive features, skin a little pale maybe in the bright salon lighting with dark circles under his eyes but his teen acne is mercifully long since outgrown — there’s nothing egregiously _wrong_ with his face. He thinks if he saw himself on the street he’d describe himself as plain, which isn’t the worst thing to be. And maybe that’s not even news. For all that he’s fixated over the years on different culprits — too-thick brows, pointy nose, thin lips, uninspiring eyes — on some level he’s always known that his issue with reflection is just that it’s himself. Quentin Coldwater, damaged goods. Marked somehow, every premature line etching proof of the accumulated hours spent collapsing. Like anyone looking can see all the reasons to stay away.

He doesn’t really see that anymore. He sees Quentin Coldwater, the guy who died. Someone the person he is now used to know and barely remembers. He drops his gaze while the stylist starts to hack away at the longer strands in the back.

After a period of energetic, purposeful snipping punctuated by the occasional spellwork, the stylist stands back and asks, “What do we think?”

Quentin thinks it looks — shorter? He tries one more time to make the face in the mirror real. _That’s me_ , he instructs himself; Quentin Coldwater, alive. The person in the glass looks back at him, stubbornly alien. He gives up and smiles to signal his approval. At least the haircut offers some visual demarcation between past and present. Maybe this is why Julia always gets highlights after a break-up. “Looks great.”

When he hands his credit card over to pay the guy at the register widens his eyes at the sight of his name. “Quentin Coldwater?”

Something about the pitch of his voice and the incredulity of his tone sounds so much like an echo of that day years ago on the Brakebills lawn that Quentin has to fight back a bitter laugh. “That’s me.”

“As in,” the guy says, and Quentin can feel his jaw tensing as he catches the question in his eyes, “I mean, you — you’re the one who —” He trails off, like he’s not sure about the etiquette of drawing attention to a customer’s violent death.

Quentin looks for Julia out of the corner of his eye. She’s talking to a stylist at the other end of the waiting area, nodding as she considers the different bottles on a shelf, but even without being watched this feels like a test. He consciously unclenches his teeth, marks the steadiness of his own hand as he grabs a pen to sign the receipt. _You knew this was coming_ , he reminds himself, _it’s no big deal_. “That’s me,” he says brightly. He takes a moment to calculate a twenty percent tip before handing the receipt over, smiling. _See?_ he tells himself. It won’t be a problem if he doesn’t make it a problem and he doesn’t need to make it a problem because it’s fine.

The guy looks awestruck, which — sure. Quentin did technically save the world. “Oh my god,” he breathes, “sorry to be weird, but what you did —”

— _It goes bad fast here._

“— I mean it was…” He bites his lip, like he can’t think of a word big enough.

And it was —

— _Take her. Do it. Now._

— a lot of things, but Quentin’s watched enough movies and read enough books to know what the right answer is here. There’s a story people want to hear, and it’s the story he grew up hearing, and maybe it’s close enough to the truth that the other shit doesn’t matter. He squares his shoulders and meets the guy’s gaze. “It was what needed to be done,” he says; pauses; adds, “I just happened to be the one there to do it.” It comes out smooth. Easy, even. Like he’s been preparing for it his whole life.

-

Browsing the local shops for clothes at prices he associates with, like, mid-range electronics would normally be the opposite of Quentin’s chosen way to spend an afternoon, but he doesn’t have any better ideas, so when Julia pauses in front of a display window, he encourages her, playing it off as appreciation for accompanying him to the salon. The reality is without the familiarity of the penthouse he feels like there’s a hole where the knowledge of what he might want or enjoy doing should go, almost as complete as some fucked up memory-block spell. It makes him feel kind of unmoored or unreal, like without all the trivial time-fillers and meaningless diversions that constitute a life his own life is something less than that. Like his dead self kept that shit on the other side. Which makes no sense, so. Whatever. He figures it’ll pass.

In the meantime letting Julia stack his arms high with not just clothes but entire outfits to try on is as good a way as any to spend an afternoon. And doing something so unlike himself eases a bit the dissonance between himself and the person he was. Maybe this could be who he is now, he thinks, looking himself up and down in a dressing room mirror; he doesn’t know if he looks good but he looks less than usual like a person whose face just screams _Please take my lunch money and dump soda down my back_. Maybe he could learn to be someone who can name the style of this black shirt and the cut of the jeans and why Julia thinks they’re a match for his new shoes. Eliot would be so annoyed, he thinks before he can stop it with a cutting satisfaction like the taste of sour candy, if he finally got into clothes now that they’re no longer on speaking terms.

He pushes the thought aside and turns his back to the mirror to undress. If nothing else the Quentin that Eliot knew seems permanently unavailable. At some point he’ll have to figure out what goes in his place.

After sunset they take the T out to Cambridge for a hedge bar someone at the safehouse recommended, where some of the people they met earlier wave them over to play what turns out to be kind of a magic-infused variant of Waterfall played with teams. Someone is heading out for the night so they wind up on the same team, and a burly redhead Quentin doesn’t think was at the house tells them in the tones of jovial rivalry common to the bro vernacular, “Sorry to say you’ve joined the losing side.”

Julia gives her sweetest smile and — he thinks this is a nice touch — bats her eyelashes. “We’ll see about that.” Quentin wonders if he should warn them that despite her size Julia is as much of a fucking overachiever about drinking games as she is about every other thing on earth. Like the way cigarette cartons have those warnings from the Surgeon General, to allow adults to make the informed decision to endanger their health.

It’s — fun? Sure. He’s always liked drinking games for the way they combine two of his favorite things: drinking and clear-cut rules for human interaction. Soon enough he’s feeling that pleasant detachment, content to bounce thoughtlessly from joining in the booming _Ohhh!_ when his team scores a point to taking a penalty shot for underestimating his opponent’s card-shifting creativity to leading the cheer when Julia shocks the table by pulling them definitively into the lead by playing a strategically risky transfiguration and then successfully shotgunning a beer the way she stubbornly taught herself over winter break in tenth grade because her sister had just come home from her first semester at college and Julia hated that there was something Mackenzie could do that she couldn’t. “The one, the only, the unfuck-with-able pride of the Upper West Side,” he says with hands cupped around his mouth and she flips him off affectionately, rolling her eyes as she takes a self-mocking bow while their teammates clap.

Quentin grins. There really is something about a person wholly in their element. Watching Julia demolish the competition, even in something as idiotic as this, has the same sense of rightness he assumes would accompany watching Picasso paint, or Bach compose. Like watching Alice cast, or watching Eliot play host, or watching Eliot fuck him, or watching Eliot with —

_—Papa, again!_

_—Again? Do you think Papa is here to spend all day tossing Teddy into the air?_

_—Yes._

_—What? That can’t be._

_—Yes!_

_—Are you sure?_

_—Yes, yes, yes._

_—Well. I suppose if you’re sure —_

_And Eliot didn’t even see Quentin looking, so enamored was he of scooping the boy up once more, his eyes drinking in Teddy’s tiny face shrieking with delight at the thrill of the air and the safety of Eliot’s hands, so sure and so easy that Quentin paused his raking to memorize the moment so that he could make Eliot see the next time he sank into the old worry that he wasn’t good enough to raise Quentin’s son, could maybe make him understand finally that whatever your insecurities, El, he’s_ our _son, I mean if you asked Teddy_ he _would definitely say —_

— and, wow, if he’s thinking like this he is — waaaaay too sober still, clearly. “I’m gonna get another drink, you want anything?” he asks Julia. She shakes her head, eyes on the card in the center of the table, and he edges out of their circle towards the bar to order another vodka tonic.

It’s not even that crowded but the bartender is taking fucking forever, which — this is why people hate Boston, Quentin thinks. He can tell that his mood is careening downward and he hates that seeing it isn’t enough to stop it even though nothing has changed the perfectly decent night out he was having — he checks his phone; twenty fucking minutes ago? In New York this asshole would have been fired two weeks in — and he hates, more than anything he hates that it is, _once again_ , Eliot Waugh’s fucking fault. Ruining his life across state lines.

From his left comes an irritated sigh. He looks up to commiserate about the slowness and recognizes a familiar olive-green cap — the girl from the safehouse. The one who called him brave.

— _It goes bad fast here_.

He’s fine. He’s fine. To prove it — not that he needs to prove it — he was going to say it anyway so he says — “Tell me about it. It would have been faster just to walk over to the next bar and come back.”

“Ugh, seriously,” the girl says. She turns to him and startles when she catches sight of his face. “Oh. Hi, again.” She gives a kind of nervous laugh.

“Hey,” he says. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught your name earlier at the safehouse.”

“Naomi,” she tells him. Cringing, she says, “Look I’m — so sorry about earlier, that was — not cool of us, like, at all. I didn’t even think about what it must have been like for you, and I really hope we didn’t —”

“It’s no big deal,” he says, because it’s not. “Really. I was just — surprised. I hadn’t realized it was something people were talking about it, so it caught me off guard. But it’s fine.” He smiles because of how completely fine it is.

“Okay,” says Naomi. “I really am sorry — I never would have expected — I mean people have definitely talked about it, like, a lot, so — you really didn’t know?”

There’s a version of this story that starts with him working his way through a bottle of wine alone in his room with the shades drawn and the lights off while he waited for Alice to get home from wherever she was that he couldn’t be bothered to keep track of and ends with him lighting a stick of dynamite and setting it to blow at the center of his entire universe, but that’s not the story he wants to tell, and he knows it’s not the story she wants to hear. So he says, “I didn’t do it to get famous, you know?”

Naomi nods slowly, her blue eyes wide and serious. She has, he didn’t notice before, an eyebrow piercing, two silver studs at the outer corner of her left eye. “Right. Of course.”

Quentin can tell that she’s dying to ask for more but doesn’t want to be rude. He can give her that, he thinks; he can give her what she thinks she wants to know. He can be the guy she wants him to be. “We were up against the wall.” She leans forward, just barely, and he mirrors her, feeling the glow of her attention. “One of the heads of the Library was going to become a god, and we couldn’t let that happen. And I think, you know — any of my friends would have done the same, in my shoes,” which he thinks is pretty generous because he’s not at all convinced about Twenty-Three, “I just happened to be the one in a position to stop him.” He remembers Julia suddenly saying _You never really talked about it_ and for just a second it feels — weird, that he’s talking about it now with this stranger instead of with his best friend, but — Julia already knows the salient points, doesn’t she, and she reads so fucking much into things, with her furrowed brow and her gentle concern, which he doesn’t blame her for after everything he’s put her through over the years but — it’s not, it’s really not like that, he’s almost positive. It happened — basically like he’s saying it now, and it’s easier like this, hanging the story on familiar beats, skipping the parts that don’t quite fit, picturing it like it was a movie someone else starred in, with someone who isn’t going to stage an intervention or argue with him as if she was fucking there, someone who — yes, fine, someone pretty who is fucking rapt hanging on his every word, which is not a crime, so — whatever. He fucking died. He’s entitled to like it, if someone happens to find that impressive.

“You must have been so scared,” Naomi says.

He freezes here for a moment, caught like one of those sea creatures in plastic on how untrue that is —

_—You always were smarter than the books gave you credit for._

— before remembering that he knows how this part of the story goes, too. “I had a couple seconds to choose between me and the entire multiverse,” he says. “I honestly didn’t have time to be scared.”

“God,” she breathes. “You’re amazing.”

She’s looking at him like she wants more, still, and the thing is he could drag it out but he thinks it might be the kind of wanting that will outlast anything he can tell her, which feels bizarre to even contemplate but it is really — a _lot_ of eye contact they’re making. So he says, “I did what I had to do,” and then, experimentally, recalling Julia’s dictum about asking questions: “But enough about me. How long have you lived in Boston?”

Naomi grew up in Western Massachusetts and moved to Boston because her dad got a job there when she was in sixteen; she’s been at the safehouse in Somerville for two years. She found out she could do magic at age twelve, healing her dog’s broken leg after he got hit by a car; she has an aunt with a sprained wrist in Florida she’s visiting next week now that she’s unmarked. She likes going to shows, smoking weed, and crafting; right now she’s working on a quilt to give to her parents on their next anniversary. She keeps talking after their drinks finally come, still fixed on him even though he’s not giving her any more of what she knows him for, and she laughs at almost everything he says, even though it’s never particularly funny. None of which proves anything, but there’s a suggestive calculus at work that reminds him of things he wanted somewhere, with someone, and if this was the person he had to be to get it, that’s — better luck than he expected. He’s leaving town tomorrow. It’s no loss if he’s wrong.

After a story of some secondhand drama recounted with much eye-rolling, he leans over and then on some boozy nerve leans even closer so that his mouth is very nearly touching her ear. The kind of thing he’s never done to anyone, the kind of move he thought himself congenitally incapable of, but — that guy’s not here, right? Silver fucking linings. “Do you want to get out of here?” He sits back, shocked and a little thrilled at his own nerve, wondering if he’s about to get slapped. Either way tonight will be a first.

A smile he hasn’t seen all night starts spreading across her face. “I can get us an Uber,” she says, “back to the house?”

“Yeah,” he says, letting his smile grow to match hers, “let’s do that.”

-

In the car their conversation is stilted and halting. Quentin hopes it’s because they’re in a weird liminal space en route to their actual goal, and not because he’s wildly miscalculated where she’s at. Julia, who spotted him on his way out of the bar, texts him thumbs-up, peach, question mark; not wanting to jinx things, he sends back _we’ll see_. At the house Naomi takes his hand, giggling a little, as she leads him through the door and up the steps, all the way to the top floor, which he assumes is a good sign.

He kisses her without preamble once they’re alone in her bedroom because he doesn’t see the point in putting off what they’ve come back here to do, and if he’s wrong he’d like to get the embarrassment over with while there’s still time to go back for another drink. Fortunately she leans into the kiss eagerly and he adjusts to her rhythm, quick and hot, slides a hand around the back of her neck to guide her gently into kissing deeper. She’s instantly loud, panting into his mouth in a way that feels kind of performative, like she wants to make sure she doesn’t bruise the sexual ego of the guy who saved the world, which he guesses is sweet if misguided, so he keeps it slow while he figures out what she’s about beneath the desire to fulfill her imagined vision of his fantasy. Kisses gently along her neck, listening for the little back-of-the-throat noise that lets him know her body is warming up to his touch, lingering as he feels her muscles stiffen and release. She turns her head to catch his mouth and he gives a quiet groan to encourage her as she rests her hands experimentally at his waist, toying with the edge of his shirt. When she runs her fingers up along the skin of his back he gets a foreign whim and follows it without thinking — since when does he do _anything_ without thinking? — reaching down to cup her ass through her jeans briefly before hoisting her up with her legs hitched around him punctuated by her light gasp, stepping forward to press her back against the wall. He holds her there for a moment before breaking the kiss without letting go, smiling as he studies her face, imagining the picture they’re making. “Hey.”

“Hi,” she breathes. She looks kind of disoriented in a good way, like maybe even as she was taking him home she wasn’t expecting to actually _enjoy_ herself, which — he hears Julia’s voice: _The bar is on the ground_.

“I’m not _that_ strong,” he says, and she gives a fluttery laugh, “but we can hang out here for a bit, or” — he nips at her ear before whispering, barely recognizing the voice saying the words coming out of his mouth — “we can get comfy, maybe go somewhere soft —”

“Yeah —” she says, “yeah, let’s — do that, let’s go to —” And he grins and carries her over to the unmade bed and lays her down.

The weirdest part is, he knows he’s good at this now. Between surviving the crucible of humiliation that was unlocking Alice Quinn’s sexual psyche (which he’s not thinking about) and fifty years of keeping it fresh with someone who thought about fucking the way Michelin star chefs think about food (which he is _definitely_ not thinking about), he feels like he accidentally signed up to complete a doctorate in sexual gratification, with a concentration in attending to niche tastes. Dr. Quentin Coldwater, PhD., board-licensed in making sure everyone goes home satisfied. He knows how to read her cues, to lift his shirt off when she tugs at it and pause to give her space to decide to follow suit, to stay with his tongue circling her breast when her ribcage arches upwards in his palms at first contact. And he’s not sure if it’s the vodka tonics or the starry-eyed way she gazed at him back in the bar or if this is another part of him that died for good at the Seam, but none of the old awkwardness clamps into his skin as positions need adjusting or hair gets caught under elbows. She slides out of her pants and he waits for the heat of nerves to bind his mouth into a stammer and when it doesn’t he picks her hand up to plant a kiss on it before slipping their hands together beneath the elastic of her soft blue underwear so that his is touching where (his own crotch surges with heat to notice) she’s already wet, and hers is resting on top; and then he says, looking her in the eye, marveling at how seamlessly the phrase falls from his lips, “Show me how you like it.”

For a second she looks shocked, like no one’s ever asked her for that kind of input before, which — god, he _so_ badly wants to feel smugly righteous about that, but unfortunately he does remember being twenty-three and even worse everything that came before. But that’s in the past and now she’s biting her lip shyly as she leads him into working long, steady strokes on her clit, nudging one of his fingers inside where he can feel that she’s opening for him, and his breath is coming faster as he watches her body squirm with pleasure, intoxicated by the proof of his own skill. Like he can believe as long as this is happening that there’s still one good thing he knows how to do.

When he pushes into her after a few minutes of distinctly inexpert head which nonetheless wins points for enthusiasm it feels — good, of course it feels fucking good, he may have discovered with other people who don’t matter anymore a fondness for certain sexual extracurriculars but he’s never really _needed_ more than this — but it feels right, too: their bodies fitting together and the way she cries out when he goes deep. He can do this, he can still do this — feel human and alive in a body breathing hard with muscles straining making someone else feel good. “Fuck,” she’s saying, and he thinks it sounds real and maybe for this moment doesn’t need to care because really she’s saying she wants him and it doesn’t matter why, “fuck, that’s amazing, you’re amazing,” and he remembers her saying it earlier, _You’re amazing_ , and he comes looking at her face on the pillow, flushed around her open mouth, and thinking of her face in the bar, eager and wanting, all for him.

-

In the morning his first thought is _Fuck, I forgot about this part_.

His second thought is _Fuck, Julia._ He launches himself upright, wincing at the daylight on his eyes, and picks up his jeans from where he left them the night before, digging through the pockets until he finds his phone. “Fuck,” he mutters, unlocking the screen where he has several notifications from Julia — it’s almost noon and they’re due in Manchester sometime that afternoon. Her second to last text is from half an hour ago: _Hey, I’m about ready to head out. If you sent me your location I can just pick you up._ The most recent one came in the last five minutes and says: _Don’t make me work a locator spell, Coldwater._

Next to him in the bed Naomi stirs. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, just — I have to text Julia, I think we’re supposed to be on the way to New Hampshire like — now, maybe?” He sends her a pin and a _sorry, just woke up_ and sighs. His head is pounding.

“Oh shit,” says Naomi.

“It’s fine,” he says. It’s not like it’s her fault. “I think she’s going to pick me up here.”

Naomi says, “There’s a shower down the hall, if you want to use it,” and he feels a rush of gratitude to her for keeping it chill.

In the hall Quentin passes — Gary? He thinks? — coming out of the bathroom, giving him a knowing tight-lipped not-quite-smile which — ugh. The shower is not quite the blast of heat he’d hoped for, but enough to drag him a little further into consciousness, although remaining vertical feels like a precarious endeavor. He considers trying to work a shaving spell but he’s more likely to cut himself with one of those than with a razor on a good day, which this is not. Instead he stands under the spray until his phone buzzes with Julia saying she’s five minutes away, which he suspects might be a dick move but doesn’t have the energy to resist.

Quentin gets dressed in the bathroom before heading back to Naomi’s bedroom for his jacket and his shoes, pausing outside the door like an actor running through his lines one last time on opening night. “Hey,” he says as he comes in. His voice thankfully sounds more solid than his body feels. “Julia’s downstairs — I’m really sorry to be running out like this after last night, which was — like really great.” He pauses gathering his things to give her a smile he hopes is convincing. Which, it’s not like he’s lying, so — so why wouldn’t it be?

Naomi grins at him, still in bed, a little shy in the glare of sobriety. “It really was,” she says. “You’re amazing.”

He flinches, making a show of patting himself down to make sure he hasn’t forgotten anything to avoid her face. “It takes two to tango, right?” Inwardly he winces, but she gives a laugh, so — it’s fine, probably. Hopefully. Whatever. He has to go. “Take care of yourself, alright?”

“You too,” she tosses back, already closing her eyes to drift back to sleep, which — good.

Julia is giving him _full_ walk of shame face from the driver’s seat the second he opens the door, eyebrows perched high and mouth pursed in amusement. “Well good _morning_ ,” she says as he gets into the car. “What happened to you since the last time I saw you?”

“First things first,” he says. “Please tell me you didn’t put the hangover Thermos in the trunk.”

“I did,” says Julia, “but look in the glove compartment.” He does and blessed be, there’s a stoppered vial glowing ruby red. “What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t look out for you in your time of need?”

“I don’t deserve you,” he says. “Do you mind activating it? I’ve never managed to get the spell right.” Julia flicks her fingers — it looks so basic; he doesn’t know what he’s doing wrong — and the liquid turns green and he downs it in a rush.

“So,” Julia says, driving slowly either because they’re in a residential area or because she doesn’t want him to puke it up before it has a chance to take effect, “how was last night?”

Quentin leans back and closes his eyes. “Last night —” His hands are trembling. He should drink water. In his head he’s watching Naomi tell him _You’re amazing_ and he doesn’t know if it’s happening in the bar or on her bed with her thick brown hair sticking to her bare neck and the car turns a corner and his stomach lurches and he almost says it then. He almost tells Julia: _Last night I fucked someone who thought I was a hero and this morning I couldn’t look her in the eye._

But then the potion kicks in: he still needs water, but his headache vanishes, the light stops hurting, his body resets itself so that he’s tired and thirsty but basically fine. “Thank god Kady decided to get into herbalism.”

“I know,” Julia says, “she can really do anything, it’s wild. Hey, now that you can turn around without throwing up, check the pouch on the back of your seat.” Quentin twists around to find a giant bottle of water there, cooling under a gentle cryomancy spell. “And before you ask: yep, that’s for you,” Julia says, gesturing with her chin to the cup of coffee in the cup holder. “How much do you love me now?”

Quentin is so grateful he doesn’t even say _Literally more than life itself_. “Uncountably much,” he says, opening the water bottle and drinking maybe a quarter of it in one go. He’s fine. He had a classic case of hangover melodrama, which is, like, textbook, alcohol is a literal depressant, like, chemically, so probably as a depressive he should imbibe more sparingly but — it’s been a rough couple days. Weeks. Months. He’s fine. Last night he got laid by someone who hadn’t memorized every crevice of insanity of the past five years of his life, which was what he wanted, and a fun time was had by all. “As to your inquiry,” he says, pausing to make sure he gets the tone right — “A gentleman does not kiss and tell.”

Julia gasps, faux-scandalized. “Quentin _Cold_ water!” She holds a palm out for five, and he slaps it.

“In seriousness,” he says, “I do feel better after hooking up with someone I didn’t have like, twelve metric tons of baggage with.” It’s an undeniable relief to have shrunk even slightly that portion of his sexual pie chart. To have one entry on the list that has nothing to do with his past.

“I mean,” Julia says, “the rebound is a known phenomenon for a reason.”

“Do you know how people — like the apps they’re using these days? Is that still a thing? Or is it like how everyone’s parents started using Facebook so now Facebook is for parents and losers?”

Julia peers at him at a stop sign. “Are you asking me to help set you up on a dating app?”

“I guess?” he says. “I mean I’m not — dating, obviously. But — yeah, I mean, is it so crazy that maybe I want to build up a repertoire of experiences outside the endless ouroboros of sexual drama with the first two people I happened to meet in grad school?”

“So when you say it like that, it actually does sound crazy,” Julia says. “But I get what you mean. And yeah, people are still using apps. A couple minutes and we’ll have you digitized and ready to go.” She grins. “Hey — I was right, wasn’t I? Basic grooming and personal questions, it’s not rocket science.”

Quentin’s gut twists a bit, remembering. _You must have been so scared_. How he’d held her gaze, watching her watch him speak. “You were right, Toto,” he says. “I had it in me all along.”

_Manchester, NH_

After they unmark a set of hedges in their thirties in an apartment downtown where anyone who recognizes him is too polite to say so and drift for an hour or so through an art museum — Julia likes to read the plaques in full, which Quentin thinks he also liked to do back when he had an attention span — they check into a hotel, where Julia makes Quentin stand by the window so she can take a profile picture with natural light and he tries with mixed results to fight his impulse to make weird faces the second a camera is trained in his direction. It turns out there’s a magician-specific app, which in retrospect seems obvious. Julia spends a few minutes on his phone setting him up, thumbs typing busily, then hands it back to him. “You’re all set as soon as you hit create.”

Quentin takes the phone and reads through the version of him she’s sketched out. His face looks — like his face. The haircut, he’s coming to see, is a definite improvement. “My interests are cooking, fitness, and the outdoors?” He looks up. “I hate those things.” 

“Oh, my bad,” Julia says. “Were you hoping to meet your soulmate while on the rebound in a city you’re leaving in twelve hours? Because if so then yeah, you should probably change that.”

He considers her argument. “Fair enough.” His thumb hovers over the oval green button at the bottom of the screen. She wrote in his real name; it occurs to him if he’s never going to see any of these people again, he doesn’t have to advertise himself as the person who did what he did. He could be any other magician looking for something casual with someone who could potentially run a joint levitation spell, which — now he’s picturing Eliot that day in the woods, it must have been about ten years in, Teddy was with Arielle’s sister in the village downstream, the two of them rising into the canopy, they couldn’t stop laughing at how goofy it was but it was hot, too, the primal jolt of heights and Eliot’s hands huge on his ribs, which — this is exactly the kind of thing he needs to drown out, so — thinking briefly of Naomi eyes wide in the bar as she leaned close to hear him he hits the button, leaving his name. Even with cooking and the outdoors and a wardrobe that would stick out like a sore thumb at a Magic: The Gathering tournament, it’s probably his most attractive feature.

-

On some level he doesn’t really believe this is going to work out. What’s left of that needy, timid part of him eternally convinced every sexual encounter is liable to be his last isn’t convinced otherwise by one night that might have been a fluke. But two and a half hours into meeting up with his first match (Anthony, 27, medium-dark skin, shaved head, appealingly wiry with insane cheekbones; interests: fitness, books, horomancy) the guy says, “So, I just _have_ to ask — Quentin Coldwater, that’s like —”

“The one and only,” says Quentin, settling into the scene playing out, “as far as I know.”

“Damn,” says Anthony. “So it’s all true?”

“Only the good stuff,” Quentin says.

Anthony gives an incredulous laugh. “Like the part where you saved the world?”

“If you want to call it that,” says Quentin, glancing down at his drink with a shrug before looking back up, smiling. It’s even easier than it was in Boston. Practice makes perfect.

Anthony is looking at him with those eyes that want to keep looking. It’s a familiar look. Quentin is starting to feel like he knows how this night ends. “What do you call it?”

“I call it something I had to do,” Quentin says. “And I call it the past. Which is —” He shifts his weight to lean across the table, ready to gamble that he’s right about how this is going to go as long as he plays the next step exactly how the dead Quentin would never have thought to play it. “— _Much_ less interesting to me than the present, which has something I want.”

Anthony raises a startled eyebrow, like he’s surprised _Quentin_ wants _him_ which — what is his life? “I’ll drink to that,” he says, raising his glass, and Quentin follows suit, tipping his drink to say, “Cheers.”

Two hours later they’re in the apartment Anthony shares with a roommate and two dogs and Anthony is gripping Quentin’s dick while fucking him from behind hissing things about _love that tight little ass, baby_ , which, sure, and they come within thirty seconds of each other and Quentin feels the weight of Anthony’s body sagging across his back and thinks, catching his breath, _Okay. Okay, this is happening_. New leaf, bitches. No more looking back.

_Portland, ME_

Marci, 24, platinum blonde with brown roots coming in and a delicate tattoo of some kind of flower on her arm (interests: nail art, interior design, hanging with my girls!!!!!!!), shakes her head, looking like she might cry. “You must have been terrified.”

“I was terrified,” Quentin says. “Terrified that everyone would lose the world we all know and love, which is filled with —” He lays his fingers gently atop her hand on the table. “— So many beautiful things.” Marci gives a tiny gasp. He lets his lip curl in satisfaction.

In her bed, watching her breasts bounce as she works her hips making moans that _kind of_ sound like she learned them from porn but she batted his hand away when he tried to get at her clit so, whatever, if it makes her happy he’s certainly not going to complain, he pants, “Hey remember what I said earlier about — beautiful things?” A dumb fucking line, but she laughs for him, a sweet girlish noise, and he laughs too, because was this really all it took all along? God. It’s almost, like, _too_ easy.

_Burlington, VT_

“I feel like I should pay for your drink,” says Benji, 28, dark and skinny, works in tech (interests: futurism, natural magic, biohacking). “Like that’s the least I could do after what you did.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Quentin says with a laugh. He stirs his weird vegetable-infused drink for a second. They’re at some healthy organic green juice place that’s also a bar which seems like a contradiction in terms but Benji said it’s his favorite place in town, so. “Now, if you want to buy me a drink to hit on me, that’s a different story.”

Benji sputters a bit, which is cute; Quentin’s not used to being on this side of the sputtering equation. He’s not used to being the one explaining the mechanics of anal sex to someone either, or going slow to make sure he’s being gentle, but apparently Benji realized he was bi like four days ago, as he kind of babblingly confesses once their shirts are off, which, good for him. Quentin can’t imagine he’d commemorate a major reevaluation of his sexual identity by trying to get with the guy whose mortal sacrifice apparently earned him national fame, but hey — shoot your shot, Benji. Live your fucking life.

_Potsdam, NY_

“I don’t love the word ‘hero?’” he says. “Because that makes it sound like it was about me, and it wasn’t. It was about all of us.”

Damien, 25, very broad and very tan and very visibly someone who works out like a _lot_ (interests: the gym, lifting, gettin mah macros bro) nods. “Whoa, man. That’s like, deep.”

“Maybe,” Quentin says with a nod. He feels like maybe there’s not a lot of places this conversation is going to go. “Shall we head back to your place?”

Damien holds him up against the wall _the entire time_ they’re fucking, like he’s made of goddamn feathers, which — okay, fine, mainstream culture is evil and wrong but sometimes right, and yeah, that’s fucking hot.

_Ithaca, NY_

Annalise, 26, wearing a _very_ low cut top that is honestly testing his commitment to sleeping around as decently as possible, huge plastic glasses and like a dozen earrings in each ear (interests: crochet, zines, illusion magic), shakes her head. “I can’t believe I’m really sitting here with you.”

“Crazy, right?” Quentin says mildly. “Wanna fuck the guy that saved the world?”

She chokes on her drink, but she doesn’t say no. In fact she says yes: yes at their table and yes in the bar bathroom where she goes down on him and yes in the backseat of the cab where he surreptitiously fingers her and yes again at her apartment, many times, loudly, and he loves hearing it each time, that quick confirmation that he’s doing something right.

_Pittsburgh, PA_

“My god,” says Vicky, 29, jet-black hair all the way down her back (Interests: foreign languages, meta-math, authentic East Asian culinary traditions none of that fake white ppl shit), “what an incredible story.”

It is kind of an incredible story. Quentin is starting to feel like maybe that’s what matters. Like the story is bigger than him, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be: his own single life, which never mattered more than it did as it was ending, smoothed out in the service of something significant and grand and ancient. It feels right, to keep the story alive, like every time he tells it it fits more easily in his mouth. Stories made him who he is, which — so that goes in the pro and con columns, but — maybe he just needed to find the right one. The one lovely and huge enough to eclipse everything in him that had made things such a mess.

He doesn’t say any of that. He says, “It was a pretty wild ride,” chuckling a little to show that it’s a knowing understatement. Then he takes a long sip of his expensive lavender-colored cocktail to let the moment land before saying, posing with his chin in his hand, “But what’s _your_ story, Vikki?” And it turns out she’s had a pretty weird life herself, but his life doesn’t matter and her life doesn’t matter when he’s eating her out on the cool tiles of her kitchen floor after she’s sucked chocolate syrup off his dick. Nothing matters when it comes down to this except bodies and heat and the harsh edges of animal desire, and thank fucking god because that’s all that he’s been wanting since he dreamed about Eliot fucking him on the lab bench in a life that’s mercifully starting to feel like something he lived a long time ago.

_Cleveland, OH_

In retrospect he’s amazed it takes him this long to fuck it up.

Leah, 25, curly brown hair and freckles in her profile picture, works in graphic design for a bimonthly naturalism magazine (interests: color theory, symmetry spells, Helvetica), gets held up at work because someone caught an error in the copy right before they were supposed to go to print, and she has to change all the… something. Her text is very detailed. Quentin tells her not to worry about it, that he’s in no rush, and he means it. But sitting at the bar waiting he starts to feel — weird. Nothing major, just — it’s been a while, he realizes, since he was actually alone, away from either Julia or that night’s match. And he’s — whatever, he’s used to being alone, in like his actual life, but maybe he’s out of practice, or — he feels weird. It’s not a big deal, but he’s an idiot, so he winds up drinking too much too fast, so that he realizes he’s properly drunk just as Leah’s sitting across from him, overflowing with apologies.

He orders a plain Coke when he gets them drinks at the bar and exerts a lot of effort towards keeping it together enough to seem normal. It works for a while; even when she bites her lip and says, “So, Quentin Coldwater… that’s kind of an unusual name… are you —?” he manages to stay on message. He’s delivered this version of events enough by now that he could probably say it in his sleep.

But then she says, “Fuck, not to be morbid, but like — I feel like no matter what, I would have been just so afraid to die.”

And time is slipping too quickly past his brain for him to come up with a better answer than, “I mean, by that point I had pretty much lost the will to live.”

 _Idiot_ , says his brain as soon as it’s out of his mouth; talk about a fucking boner killer. Quentin readies himself to hear her attempts at a graceful exit from the crazy person she’s accidentally wound up on a date with, telling himself it might be early enough that he can find someone else yet when she’s gone.

Leah’s eyes go huge; her mouth does something soft and sad. “Oh my god,” she says, “that’s terrible.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, figuring the evening’s enough of a wash it’s not worth bothering to try to turn it around, “it sucked pretty bad. You know, my ex-boyfriend was possessed, and things were complicated between us but it was still crazy to watch his body do all these fucked up things, and my best friend was like technically not human anymore, and people kept dying…. It was a pretty fucked up time.”

“How awful,” she says, taking his hand.

Wait, taking his — what now?

“Uh,” he says, looking at her hand on his, dragging her thumb back and forth across the top of his wrist, which is — not a reaction he anticipated, “yeah — it was awful. Really… bad.”

Leah leans forward and reaches to kind of — rest her other hand against his neck? “I can totally see how that would fuck with your head.”

He nods, searching her sympathetic face for clues. “Yeah….” She starts stroking the side of his neck, kind of — soothing-sexily, which — what is going _on_?

“You must have felt so alone,” she says, and her voice is getting — breathy and low and —

“I… did,” he says. She sighs, like — this cannot possibly be doing it for her, but — “I felt so alone. So very, very alone.”

“Do you still feel that way?” she asks, looking deep into his eyes.

Who is this woman, he thinks, and, frankly, where has she been for the entire history of his sexual development? He tries to lift his eyebrows into a poignant peak when he says, “Sometimes. Sometimes I still — feel very alone. Like — today, for example, was a pretty — alone-feeling day. And tonight — tonight especially I feel — so alone, inside.”

“You don’t have to be alone tonight,” she whispers, and then she — fucking kisses him, _what?_

He’s so baffled by the whole thing he feels barely conscious as she gets the check and guides him into the Uber she calls. “I’m gonna take care of you,” she whispers into his ear on the drive to her place, hand splayed on his crotch, and to be fair, she really goes the extra mile once they’re in private.

_Toledo, OH_

It’s such a weird encounter that it’s still in the back of his head the next night. When Zoe, 24, olive-toned skin and wide black eyes under a swirl of pink hair (interests: reading, movies, friends), asks him how he found the courage to take that risk, he says, more as an experiment than anything else, “Honestly, things had gotten so fucked up that by that point dying seemed like a bonus.”

Which isn’t — he doesn’t think it’s true, exactly, or not — the only truth, or the only way to say the truth — he wanted to live. He’s pretty sure. Given the choice in a vacuum, or whatever, he would have picked life. But he wants to see what she does if he tells it like this.

What she does is to cover her mouth in horrified shock, which — right, he thinks, cringing inwardly; that’s what he expected. But then she says, “Wow. And yet you’re still here. That’s incredible.”

He bites back a laugh. He doesn’t think he gets any kind of credit for, what — waking up in the mornings and making it a solid sixteen hours without tying rocks to his ankles and walking into the sea? What a fucking accomplishment. But he can’t deny that it feels nice to hear her act like it is.

“I try,” he says, which means nothing but seems to strike her as impressive. “Sometimes I just feel so alone, you know?”

Zoe nods. “Totally.” He slides his hand across the table, towards hers. She turns her palm up to receive him, grasping his fingers close, and he smiles, taking care not to look too happy, stunned that it worked.

_Detroit, MI_

Michael, 27, sandy-haired with wire glasses in an oversize sweater (interests: abstruse Continental theory, passive-aggressive academic footnotes, sociology of magical creatures), presents a conundrum. He just got back from an immersive year-long field study with the Clurichauns of Northern Wales and he’s been out of the loop on human news. He seems to have no idea who Quentin is, and Quentin has no idea how to proceed here.

They talk through a few rounds of scotch for Michael and gin and tonics for Quentin because the taste of whiskey makes him think of the person he’s not thinking about, mostly about Michael’s plans for finishing up his dissertation because nothing about Quentin’s life is interesting or makes sense without the context he doesn’t want to provide. He almost regrets meeting Michael this way because Michael is smart and dorky in a way that makes Quentin feel like in some other universe they might have been friends. As it is, he’s about to drop an excuse for bailing that will give him time to try to salvage the evening elsewhere when Michael says, “So do you want to get out of here?”

“Yeah,” Quentin says, confused but — pleased. “I would.”

Despite the fact that he’s been very clear that he’s leaving town tomorrow, there’s a part of him that is convinced Michael is inviting him back to his place as a friend — right up until the point where Michael says, a little awkward but scotch-bold, “I’m gonna kiss you now, if that’s okay.” Basic grooming and personal questions, Quentin thinks as Michael’s tongue pushes into his mouth; maybe Julia had a point. It feels better than he thinks it should, to watch someone undress him eagerly who’s unclouded by the haze of his alleged heroism, which he suspects operates on those who are into it kind of like how normal-looking people can be super hot if they get rich enough.

The sex is fine; not particularly memorable, but they both get off. Afterwards they’re lying in the dark on Michael’s thin mattress and Michael laughs a bit, that post-sex sound of temporary coziness. Quentin used to like that sound; he likes hearing it now. He’s about to say the kind of thing he hasn’t been saying in other people’s beds, like how much he enjoyed the night, or that they should find each other on social media, not because either of them would particularly want to but because it’s a way to communicate a certain semi-intimate appreciation, when Michael says, “So, I didn’t want to say anything earlier because I didn’t want to make it weird, but… I _have_ to ask: you’re the guy from the Seam, right?”

Quentin doesn’t know why it feels like there’s a power outage in his body — like his blood stops and his innards crash out of him through the floor beneath leaving him cold and hollowed out, like an abandoned skyscraper. It doesn’t matter. Nothing fucking matters, that’s the whole — point, so — “Yeah, that’s me.”

“Wow.” Michael laughs again. It doesn’t sound as nice this time. “Of all the things to happen my first week back.”

“Small world,” Quentin manages. He rolls over to face the wall. “Sleep well,” he says. But he’s awake for a long, long time.

-

“Is this really what you want right now?” Julia says. 

They’re having lunch at a diner where Quentin ordered some all-day breakfast special which he realized halfway through was way too much food but now he feels, like, committed. It’s not like they have a fridge to store leftovers in. Well, magic, but. He bristles preemptively. “Is what really what I want right now?”

Julia raises an eyebrow. “Sleeping with a different person in every city we go to.”

“Wow, _what?_ ” Quentin sputters. “I’m not — that’s — are you _slut-shaming_ me?”

“Okay, who told you about slut-shaming?” Julia says. “I need to have words with that person.”

“I’m a consenting adult, Julia.”

“Was it Margo?” Julia narrows her eyes, considering, then shakes her head. “No, Margo would know better. Was it _Josh?_ ”

Quentin crosses his arms over his chest. “Listen: my body, my choice.”

“Not what that means.”

“So are you saying it’s not my _body_ ,” Quentin demands, “or not my _choice_?”

“Quentin —”

“Because frankly, from where I’m standing, neither of those is a remotely supportable proposition.”

Julia pinches the bridge of her nose. Quentin shoves a forkful of pancake into his mouth, digging into the weird un-flavor of cheap fake syrup. “It seems unlike you. Can I say that?”

“It was _your_ idea,” he says.

“I don’t... think it was,” she says, frowning.

“And who says it’s not like me? What, now you’re like, the expert on what I’m like? And even if you _were_ ,” he adds quickly because like, she kind of is, “who says that what I’ve been like historically has to be what I’m like now? People can’t change? Even after gigantic traumatic events like, uh, dying? _Obviously_ I’m not saying I’m _traumatized_ —” He pauses to give her a chance to argue.

“Not engaging with that.”

“What,” he picks at it, “you think I’m like, so scarred for life or whatever?”

“I didn’t say that,” Julia says. “I think that is not a productive conversation for us to have, so I’m not engaging with it.” She takes a sip of her coffee.

“Okay, well,” he says, slightly defeated, “I’m not, but — it’s not crazy to think I might be different after fucking death. Arguably it would be crazier if I weren’t. Besides, you’re the one who’s always telling me I need to put myself out there more. Maybe this is personal growth, Julia. Did you ever think of that?”

Julia gives a long-suffering sigh like he’s being ridiculous and she’s being very patient, which is not any less annoying just because that might happen to be true. “Look, I was only thinking — as someone who has said yes to sex I thought I was really excited to be having for reasons that in retrospect were not always the healthiest for my emotional well-being, I just wanted to check that whatever you’re doing is something that — feels good, for you. Not to be a corny health teacher, but like.” She shrugs. “Sex should feel like a good thing, you know?”

Well. He has no way to fight that without being a huge asshole. “Yeah,” he says, letting his shoulders relax. “That’s — thanks. But I feel good. I feel great.” He flashes briefly to Michael’s place that morning, how Michael had woken up before him and made them coffee and while Quentin drank it standing barefoot at his counter he’d asked, _So — I’m just curious, do you know what the mechanism was for your resurrection? The Clurichauns have a lot of lore about the boundary between worlds — liminal spaces are big in their mythos, which makes sense if you think about the kinds of magic they’ve been documented doing — so I was wondering about whether…_ And Quentin had faked an unconvincing phone call from Julia to escape from the conversation and the building. Which — whatever, people are going to be who they are, it doesn’t have anything to do with him — which was like the whole idea anyway, of finding people who have nothing to do with him — so it — it doesn’t matter. He gives Julia a smile. “No need to worry. Really. I’m just — having fun.”

Julia doesn’t look wholly convinced, but it seems to appease her for now. “Well, I was thinking — we don’t have to be in Grand Rapids until pretty late tomorrow; I thought today maybe we could walk around the city, and then maybe tonight we have a chill night in back at the hotel. Just you and me and Netflix. Like old times.”

“Yeah,” Quentin says, “sure, that sounds great.” And there’s no reason why it shouldn’t, so. His stomach hurts. His stomach has been hurting for a while. The bacon is cold and too chewy and he can barely taste it anymore but he keeps eating it until the plate is empty.

-

It’s a good day. They walk along the riverfront and poke around some art museum and take a tour at the Motown Museum, where a white-haired woman in their group looks on the verge of tears the entire time but not in an unhappy way. For dinner they go to a barbecue place someone Julia knows recommended and Quentin remembers to appreciate having a friend he can freely share the indignity of eating great barbecue with. Back at the hotel he changes into sweats and she changes into pajamas and they sit on the floor watching _30 Rock_ on Julia’s laptop and it really does feel like a middle school sleepover, or a Tuesday night at college, or any of hundreds of nights any year between. It’s nice. He tells her so, and she looks happy and maybe a little relieved to hear it. When she says “Good night, Q,” before turning off the light, there’s a warm contentment in her voice.

He lies on his back, listening to her breathing even out in the dark. He feels kind of nauseous but that’s probably just from the family-size bag of Sour Patch Kids he ate, which — he’d meant it to last at least a couple days but he felt self-conscious going on a second smoke break for the evening, like Julia might judge him or worry, he didn’t know which was worse, and they’d distracted him from the thought as long as he kept putting them in his mouth so he kept putting them in his mouth until there weren’t any left. Probably he should have just bought a sandwich somewhere. But it’s fine. He’ll sleep it off and in the morning he’ll eat something made of more than just sugar and salt and he’ll be fine. He closes his eyes.

_—It goes bad fast here._

_—Take her. Do it. Now._

Which, he doesn’t — he doesn’t need to think about this now but he also doesn’t — need to run away, it’s just — a memory. Just a memory, he tells himself, pressing his eyes shut tight, just neurons connecting on the way to sleep, it doesn’t mean —

_—Quentin I think you need to—_

_—You always were smarter than the books gave you credit for._

—it doesn’t matter, it’s not the story, the story is the thing that’s real. He’s uncomfortably aware of his heartbeat which is stupid because he’s not, what, _afraid_ of something that already happened, and that barely happened like it happened, something that was —

_—This is not what we agreed on._

_—I didn’t actually agree on anything, but —_

— it was a story he lived and yeah it killed him but he’s here again, so. He tries to do that deep breathing one of his therapists was really into, the one back in high school when he had separate appointments with her and his psychiatrist, you’re supposed to count, right, like, four in, eight out, something like that, close enough, one, two, three —

_—You’ll go down as a hero. I’ll make sure of it._

_And Quentin had thought —_

He doesn’t remember getting dressed. He doesn’t remember slipping his keycard into his pocket or leaving the room or walking down the hallway or riding the elevator downstairs. He’s outside the lobby smoking and it’s — fine. Just a few minutes, just the cigarette’s polestar glow drawing nearer as it sheds its ashes. Nearly to the filter and he stamps it out, see? And he doesn’t take another one because he doesn’t need another one because he’s going inside. And he barely notices turning away from the glass double doors and into the dimly lit bar next to the hotel. And he’s ordering a drink, just a drink, because he just needs a little more time away from the room and it’s chilly out. He didn’t bring his jacket down because he’s not going anywhere. It’s rude to sit without buying anything.

There’s a woman next to him at the bar. Black hair done up in some glossy curling shape, dark red lipstick. Expensive-looking clothes, nice in a professional way. She’s staying at the hotel too, he finds out when he asks; she’s in town for business, a regular trip, usually every month. She lives in Austin. There’s a ring on her finger but that doesn’t have to mean anything. She lets him buy their next round; she asks him the kind of questions that don’t mean anything except that she wants to keep talking. She leans close holding her eyes steady in a way that feels like a question and when very softly he rests his hand on the top of her thigh she smiles. It’s her idea to go back up to her room.

And then it’s — happening, the way he — wanted it, which — the sound of their unmatched breathing while he scrambles to undo the buttons of her blouse, the unthinking rush to unclasp her bra. Her eyes following her hands running approvingly down his bare chest, the friction of her hips against where his dick is straining against his jeans. That easy, obvious yes, yes, yes. She’s older than the people he’s been sleeping with lately, maybe a few or more than a few years older than him, and she isn’t shy about telling him she likes to be in charge, so when she threads her hands through his hair while he’s between her legs he lifts his face long enough to catch her eye so she’ll know if she wants to know that he means it when he tells her, “You can be, like, honestly a lot rougher with me, if that’s a thing you’re into, I mean I know it doesn’t necessarily always go —” And her lips curl into a smirk as she _pulls_ and his chest collapses with a grateful _oh, fuck_ before he gets back to work and it’s — good.

It’s good. It is. To be just a body with a body; he’s not even sure they exchanged names and if they did he doesn’t remember it. Which is what he wanted, maybe, this heat and sweat and crashing together happening outside a story, outside his name. Right? She smacks his ass hard while he groans into the mattress and it’s good, it’s good, this is what he likes. The part where he can stop fucking — _thinking_ , and just trust himself to — to no one, to nothing, there’s nothing beneath it and that’s what he likes, that’s what he’s always liked about it, right, the way it — hollows him out. A respite from his own company. Who could fucking blame him, after — ? It’s good, it’s good, he’s fucking into her warm wet cunt while she scratches down his back, watching her face twist, the deep ragged noises he’s pulling out of her throat, and when he says _Tell me how it feels_ she obliges, _fuck, fuck, that’s so good, fuck, yes, don’t stop_ — and he doesn’t even bother to feel embarrassed about how badly he wanted her to put words to what he could already hear because who could fucking blame him, after everything, for wanting to know in his body that there’s something someone wants from him that’s untouched by his death.


	3. Chapter 3

_Grand Rapids, MI_

The next set of hedges on their list look more than anything like a group of college kids renting a house off-campus senior year; when they show up at four in the afternoon, a guy with no shirt runs to get a girl in a beat-up jean jacket who looks like she just woke up. With the characteristic hospitality of the young, broke, and questionably hygienic they bring out a case of PBR to share; when Julia takes hers Quentin catches her smothering a laugh. He feels somehow simultaneously seven hundred years old and like he’s eighteen again, tagging along with Julia’s newspaper friends at that one kid’s house whose parents never seemed to be home.

He’s not sure if there’s a party scheduled for that night or if this is just the kind of place people know to show up at if they want to start getting plastered on a Thursday before the sun’s gone down, but thrift-clad newcomers start trickling in while they’re still working on their beers, and not long after that someone dims the lights and cranks the music.

Julia meets his eyes with skeptical mirth. “I feel like an R. A.”

“I feel like the cryptkeeper,” he says.

“We should probably start heading back to the hotel,” she says, setting her can on the IKEA side table where they’ve started gathering.

Quentin imagines it: the drive back, the professionally clean and tidy room. The hours left to spend awake and then the hours of dark waiting alone in a bed for his mind to turn off and stop thinking —

— _It goes bad fast here._

_—I didn’t actually agree on anything, but I did decide that one of my best friends —_

“You can go,” he says. “I’m going to hang around here for a bit.”

Julia makes a face like he’s just announced his intention to complete a triathlon naked. “You are.”

“Yeah, I’m —” He can’t say _having fun_ even as a joke. “Anthropologically curious. It’s a novel environment. New experiences, you know.” That sounds good enough, probably.

“Okay,” Julia says slowly. “If you’re sure.”

“Yeah, why not,” he says. “YOLO, right? I mean — YOLT in my case, I guess, but. The principle stands. Just text me the address of the hotel so I can get back.”

“Okay,” she says again. She’s still looking at him like she’s trying to decide if he’s been body-snatched and doesn’t want to alert the aliens to her suspicion, but she gets off the couch and says an uncertain goodbye before waving her way out the door.

So now it’s just Quentin. Just him and several dozen twenty-one-year-olds and —

_—Quentin, I think you need to —_

— _This is not what we agreed on._

Someone’s calling for shots, thank _god_. Quentin hops over to the relevant corner and downs one, then a surreptitious second just to be sure, and then he’s — fine, he’s going to be fine. He’s here to spend a night slumming it with people he knows are maybe five years younger than he is at most but seem somehow like literal children and have some fun doing stupid shit because that’s what he’s about right now, so he grabs another beer and sidles up to the beer pong table while he still has the hand-eye coordination to make it worthwhile.

He’s really not planning to stay that long. But the moment to leave keeps coming, the end of a drink or a lull in the game reminding him that time is passing and he should leave the dark and the beats pounding through the speakers and the crowd which smells increasingly like sweat and booze and go out into the night where no one knows him to make his way back to Julia who does, and he keeps picturing himself in the back of a cab with all that time passing still and nothing to fill it up except himself, and he just — doesn’t want to. He wants another shot or another round or another handful of potato chips from the giant red bowl on the drinks table or another few minutes where the music and the voices are the only thing crowding his head.

He winds up in the unkempt backyard somehow, focusing very hard on getting his fingers to work the lighter he’s holding up to a tightly packed bowl. He’s remembering suddenly long elegant fingers snapping a fire into miraculous existence and he’s inhaling maybe more than is wise, trying to swallow a cough long enough to hold the burn in his lungs enough for it to set, exhaling and feeling himself float, a little, or actually kind of a lot, like maybe that wasn’t his first hit tonight, which — He’s laughing, he doesn’t remember why he’s laughing, they’re on the damp long grass. It’s cold under his ass. He’s got a beer in his hand and he’s leaning against the staircase and there are people gathered around him because he’s telling the story. It’s such a good story. They’d been trying to save magic so long. All those chapters in the book, and finally the time had come for him to — that’s not what they asked about, sorry, sorry, that’s just backstory, anyway it was — everyone against us, with a monster to slay and a job to do. He liked that story so long ago. It had to happen. Any of them would have done it, he explains. That part’s important. But this is important too: he was the one that did.

Shot glass to his mouth, salt and oil on his fingers, stomach roiling a little, he should — drink some water, he should — under the stars. The dark sky and the grass under his legs. Like fifty years ago, like two years ago, when he — he needs a fucking cigarette. And so does the girl sitting next to him on the grass, ankles delicately crossed. She’s talking — the song playing, she loves this song. _I fly like paper get high like planes._ He thinks _Everyone on earth loves this song_ but doesn’t say it because it sounds mean if you don’t know him but apparently he does say it but she laughs. She laughs a lot but she seems pretty stoned. He tries to remember if she was there when they got to the house, if he saw her in the crowd by the staircase. He can’t remember. He doesn’t want to know. He wants to kiss her.

They’re kissing and he’s briefly alarmed because he doesn’t remember making that happen, but she’s pretty and her body is warm in his lap and she’s moaning into his mouth. Everywhere she touches him feels very hot and far away. It takes him a while to notice that his dick is responding but when he does he grips her hips, more roughly than he meant to but she doesn’t seem to mind, and guides her into grinding against him, just like — _that_. She’s standing and he feels sorry because he must have done something wrong but, no, her hand out to help him up, and he’s following her into the house, through a door, into the basement, boys around the pool table, low wolf-whistle as the carpet becomes grey speckled linoleum, flick on the fluorescent lights, round a corner where no one can see, shut the door. She’s perched on top of a white washing machine; there’s a plastic laundry basket piled with clean clothes by his feet. He was supposed to leave, he remembers with a start; Julia —

Their breath fast and desperate in the air between them. Her legs around his waist, his face between her breasts. She reaches to take her glasses off and he says “No, leave them — I think they’re cute,” and she purses her lips smirking and lets them stay. Her glasses and her long blonde hair. The sounds in her throat now that he’s — inside her, he’s inside her now, that’s why he’s making these low ugly grunting sounds, because he’s close but not as close as he should be, he’s close but he’s taking so long — she’s whispering in his ear, nothing words, he thinks she might be done and trying to hurry him along, but he keeps saying _yeah, yeah,_ because he wants her to keep going, _That’s so good_ , _Yeah?_ , and again, _You’re so hot, Yeah?_ , needy, pathetic, thrusting deep, and she says _Yeah, fuck, so fucking hot_ — and with a hot wave of embarrassment he’s coming, chest heaving, stepping back to pull up his pants, and she’s laughing, saying “Wow, that was —” But he doesn’t hear what it was, because he’s doubled over, puking all over someone’s clean laundry.

-

He wakes up to the glare of the sun through the window at the hotel. There’s the sound of running water coming from somewhere. Julia’s taking a shower, he realizes. His head is killing him and his mouth tastes like vomit and beer. He rolls over to look at the time on the red-numbered hotel clock — 7:19, unacceptable — and spots two glasses, one filled with water and the other containing a thin layer of welcome magical liquid, already glowing green. He takes it, then lies back, waiting for it to settle his digestive system, and makes a note to thank Julia later.

He’s still wearing the clothes he was in last night. He took a — cab? Or — no, some unfortunate designated driver offered a ride because his friend lived not too far from here. He has a vague memory of scrolling through his texts from Julia to ascertain the address of the hotel. A few moments from last night stand out with unwanted daylight clarity — throwing up in the basement chief among them — but the rest is a patchwork blur, images swirling impressionistically like beads in a kaleidoscope when he tries to connect them — grass and stars and a burn in his throat, laughter and smoke out in the yard. Glasses and pretty blonde hair.

When he feels like he can sit up he forces himself to do it, drinking the water in one go. His phone is plugged in; Julia must have done that too. He lifts it to check the charge and his stomach clenches when he sees a notification from Alice. _May as well get it over with_ , he thinks, unlocking the screen.

He’d texted her last night, apparently. 4:26 a.m: _were we always a mistake?_ Just past seven she’d sent back: _Fuck you, Quentin._

He drops his head back onto the pillow. He can’t really argue with that.

_Chicago, IL_

Quentin begs off sight-seeing with Julia after lunch, citing a migraine. His head is fine but he doesn’t want to wander the Art Institute or stroll through the Navy Pier or get deep dish at some place all the UChicago kids like. He doesn’t care and he doesn’t have the energy to fake it, today. Not when being with Julia has felt — weird all day. He keeps feeling like he’s keeping a secret from her and she knows something is wrong. Which is crazy because what fucking secrets does he have from Julia, at this point? He didn’t spell out what happened at the party after she left but it’s not like she’s his fucking priest. And except for maybe ruining someone’s polos and boxer shorts he did nothing wrong. And they’re magic-users anyway, with enough of them unmarked that the rest will be soon too. It’s an easy clean-up spell. Plus she doesn’t like, _want_ to hear the play by play of his least dignified sexual encounters. So — everything’s normal. He just isn’t in the mood to take a selfie at some Art Deco fountain. They’ve been on the road two weeks. It’s okay to need a break every now and then.

He probably should have made some kind of plan for what he’d do with his hours alone, though. As it is he winds up almost as if by some law of physics working his way through a six-pack, four cigarettes, half a dozen glazed donuts he bought to force himself to stop smoking, and a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch while half-watching _30 Rock_ , which — it’s not the _worst_ way to spend an afternoon. He’s not sure what the alternative would have been. But he can’t focus even on the show. His mind keeps wandering to shit like — the blonde in Grand Rapids, wrapped around him, telling him over and over _You’re so hot, fuck, so fucking hot_ , which should be a decent memory or at the worst kind of embarrassing except that he’s drunk and alone and the more the image comes back to his brain the more it blurs and shifts like a camera lens adjusting the focus and when the lines are newly clear it’s Eliot pressing him against the desk Quentin had built in secret to give to him for his birthday, barely even touching him like he wanted to see how wild Quentin could get listening to Eliot whisper _God, Q, you’re so hot, all this time and somehow you don’t even know, but you are, you are, you’re pretty, you’re the fucking prettiest —_

On the screen Jack is saying, “Lemon, let me explain something to you that you could have no way of knowing. Emotionally unstable women are fantastic in the sack. Their self-loathing translates into… well, never mind.”

Quentin closes the laptop. Maybe he needs something less familiar to keep his attention.

He reaches for another beer but it turns out he was on his last one and he flops onto his back, staring at the ceiling. He should probably clean up so Julia doesn’t worry when she comes back, but the beer and the donuts are not agreeing with each other and he thinks if he stands up he might heave. He should have just sucked it up and gone with Julia. She’s probably walking by the river right now, enjoying the fresh air like a normal, well-adjusted human being, instead of whatever the fuck he is, stuck under his own gravity, bailing on his best friend to, what, drink alone in a hotel room and moon over Eliot fucking Waugh?

It’s just — infuriating, is what it fucking is. That it’s been half a month since they saw each other and Eliot is still somehow living rent-free in both his head and his dick. That nothing Quentin does and no one Quentin fucks has managed to dull the aggravation even a little. And meanwhile Eliot is off swanning around Whitespire, being a fucking — loyal member of the court, or whatever, with his bullshit responsible drinking and his bullshit emotional intelligence and his bullshit therapy and his whole bullshit fucking life, this grand reinvention he managed to pull together the second Quentin wasn’t around to want anything from him anymore.

He picks up his phone and scrolls to Eliot’s name in his contact list, not even hesitating before he presses the call button. He’s sober enough to logically know this is not productive but drunk enough not to give a shit, and pissed enough to want Eliot to know it. Who fucking knows when he’ll take a break from his stupid royal duties to wind up on Earth long enough to check his messages, but when he does Quentin wants to be waiting for him. That’s something he doesn’t mind imagining: Eliot hitting pause on his perfect life and being forced to remember how badly he fucked them up.

Except that when the ringing noise stops instead of whatever tryhard instructions Eliot’s recorded Quentin hears, “Hello?”

Quentin says, “Oh.” His heart is pounding, which is — probably his body complaining about everything he’s spent the afternoon putting inside it. “I didn’t think you’d pick up. I was going to leave you a voice mail that said go fuck yourself.”

“Charming,” Eliot says dryly. Quentin grits his teeth. “Well, sorry to have ruined your plans.”

Quentin wants to fucking punch him in the face. “It’s okay,” he says, trying to sound bored.

“Now that I know this isn’t the life-threatening and time-sensitive emergency I assumed you were calling about, I’m going to hang up.”

“Wait,” he says before he can think better of it.

There’s a silence. A long silence. Quentin watches the rightmost number on the clock on the nightstand flick from 7 to 8 with grim satisfaction.

Finally Eliot says, with — good — a trace of impatience, “...Yes?”

“I didn’t have anything to say,” Quentin says. “I just wanted to see if you’d wait.”

“Well,” Eliot says, not sounding nearly as annoyed as Quentin would’ve hoped, “got your wish.”

“How do you know that was my wish?” Quentin says. “You don’t fucking know me. Maybe my wish was that you’d hang up.”

Eliot has the nerve to fucking _laugh_. God, he sucks so much. “Sure. Okay. Bye now, Quentin.”

“Wait,” Quentin says, “I have a real question now.”

Eliot sighs. Quentin can picture his face: rolling his eyes, trying to talk himself into ending the conversation. His internal monologue telling him he knows he should just stop, god, what would his therapist say. “Yes?”

“Why are you on Earth?” Quentin asks. “Don’t you have like, Fillory shit to be doing? Royal stuff? Don’t you have roles to model?”

“Oh.”

“Are you like the Fillorian Mr. Rogers? Welcoming kids into your neighborhood to teach them about like, manners and shit?”

“I don’t think that’s what Mr. Rogers was about.”

“Are you a DARE counselor?” He’s getting heated now. “Are you telling people to stay off the nectar in that one swamp region, because drugs are for losers?”

“Obviously not.”

“Are you teaching sex positivity workshops about like consent and kink negotiation to the village folk at the footholds of the Copper Mountains?”

“Quentin —”

“Village folx, my bad. With an x.”

Eliot asks, “Are you drunk?”

“What’s with that,” Quentin wonders aloud. “I mean folks is already gender neutral.”

“Quentin…”

Quentin rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’m drunk. So what. I’m in Chicago, it’s a different time zone.”

“So it’s actually _earlier_ where you are.”

“I don’t see your point.”

“Okay, well.” That stupid huffing noise that means he’s trying to pull himself together. Like a wet dog shaking itself, but for emotions. “I thought you wanted to know what I was doing on Earth.”

“That is what I want to know. Focus up, dude.” He tries to snap but he can’t get the friction right.

Eliot gives a short laugh. “I’m actually walking back from my therapy appointment.”

“Oh.” Quentin looks at the clock, wrestles with some basic arithmetic. “So you have therapy at, what. Three o’clock New York time Fridays?”

Warily Eliot asks, “Am I going to regret giving you that information?”

“I’m not psychic, how should I know?” Quentin turns back to the ceiling. It’s not quite staying still. “Alright, well, I should go. I have a very busy afternoon ahead of me.”

“Uh huh.” 

“Don’t call me,” he says. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“Oh no,” Eliot says, “how very disappointing.”

“Seriously man,” Quentin warns, “don’t call me.”

“Would you pick up if I did?”

The question startles him. Before he can stop it he’s picturing his phone buzzing, Eliot’s name on the screen, and he — he would — “I don’t think so,” he says. “But — don’t.”

“Duly noted,” Eliot says. “Am I allowed to hang up now, or is this another fake-out?”

“You can do whatever the fuck you want, I’m not your boss,” Quentin says, and ends the call before Eliot has a chance to respond.

_Northbound on I-94 W_

“How come you’re like, normal?” Quentin asks.

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Julia’s eyebrows shooting up. “Is that really the first word that comes to mind when you think of me?”

“No,” he says, “but like, comparatively. To me, I mean.”

“Q, I don’t think this is really…”

“I mean, your childhood was arguably way more fucked up than mine.” Sleepovers at Julia’s were fun because her family bought all the brand name shit and her art supplies collection was insane and also because when _her_ parents fought it never occurred to them to watch their language because the kids might be around, so he learned all kinds of words.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I guess for me it helps to have a project.”

“Oh, great,” Quentin snaps, “so what, I’m your _project_ now?”

“No,” Julia says, in a voice like she might use with an angry kindergartener, “removing Reed’s Mark from hedges across the country so that they can use magic without _dying_ is my project now.”

“Oh,” he says, chastened. “That makes sense.” Someone in a black car driving way too fast passes them and he thinks about trying to catch them, foot on the gas, faster and faster until he lost control or the car exploded in a spinning ball of fire out of a Michael Bay movie. “So what happens when we’re done?”

“I don’t know yet,” she says. “I might want to get into some kind of research. Fogg says my discipline is Knowledge, and I’ve never had a chance to just — dive into that, you know? Kady will still be working on hedge issues, maybe I’ll join in whatever she’s focusing on then. Or, you know, it doesn’t have to be something major. Maybe I’ll chill for a while, and my project will be getting really into French cooking, you know? Or training for a marathon.”

“I cannot believe you just included training for a marathon as an example of chilling out,” Quentin says. “I take it back, you’re a total freak.”

She laughs. “What about you? What do you want to do next?”

The car is a sedan. It probably wouldn’t blaze out in a summer blockbuster CGI fireball. It probably has, like, safety mechanisms to keep it from doing that. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” he says. He tries to imagine what he might want to do when they’re back in New York and maybe by then he doesn’t want to kill himself or someone else every conscious second of every single day. Was this the kind of thing the dead Quentin used to do? Did he have, like, dreams and shit? Goals? Projects? “I’m sure I’ll figure it out.”

_Milwaukee, WI_

Adam, 22, short and stocky with curly brown hair (interests: intersectional feminism, craft beers, film), is looking down at Quentin, his shirtless and unexpectedly defined torso just above him. “You should know I’m a biter,” he whispers, eyebrow raised. “Is that something you’re into?”

“Sure,” Quentin says, smiling. He would feel more enthusiastic except that the surroundings are making it hard to take him seriously. His bed has Star Wars sheets. Like, Star Wars _prequel_ sheets. Even Quentin knows that’s the kind of shit you hide in the dresser before you try to convince someone to sleep with you.

“Good,” Adam says, lips widening into a lascivious grin. “Because I like it rough.” He leans to hiss, “It’s so animalistic.”

“Mmm,” Quentin says, trying to sound approving when Anakin Skywalker is looking at him from the corner of the bed.

Adam dives in and proceeds to — like, kind of mash his mouth against Quentin’s neck with the occasional application of teeth using all the ferocity of a mother cat picking up her spawn. Quentin tries unsuccessfully to stifle a laugh and attempts instead to disguise it as a moan.

“Yeah, you like that, baby?” Adam pants. Why is he panting? He’s like, barely moving.

“Uh huh,” Quentin says, “yeah — I do, baby,” he says, and lets Adam continue his work, shoulders shaking with laughter he hopes Adam is dumb enough to confuse for arousal.

Adam falls asleep immediately after the proceedings. By that point Quentin feels like he finally understands why women fake orgasms and is kind of jealous of their ability to do so. That’s on him, probably, for sleeping with an actual college kid. Except now he’s thinking about those first few months with Alice, how everything was humiliating but it was all kind of beautiful, too. Broken glass sparkling in the light. They had no idea what the fuck they were doing or what the fuck they were going to become, but they knew that they liked each other and for a little while that seemed like enough. He’s thinking about that second year at the mosaic, how they kept not having the conversation on repeat in his head but he mostly forgot to care so hungry was he for Eliot’s body on his again and again and again. That bottomless capacity for forgetting, just because someone made him shiver with a touch, that blissful idiocy — that’s gone, and he’s not even sure it was dying that did it. He thinks maybe he just grew up.

He tiptoes out of the dorm room, leaving behind a note saying his friend texted needing his help. He doesn’t feel like waking up to the face of someone young enough to get lost in his own stupid longing, still.

_Northbound on I-41_

“I was looking up what there is in Appleton,” Julia says. “And it turns out it’s —”

“Houdini’s hometown,” Quentin says. “Please. You think you need to tell me that?”

She laughs. “I should have known. It made me remember your birthday — was it your twelfth?”

“I think so,” he says. His parents had sprung for some kids’ magician because they felt guilty about the divorce. While Julia and the other kids whose parents thought it would be mean not to come had politely clapped at his tricks, Quentin had watched with narrow eyes trying to spot clues to the secrets and grilled him on his way out the door about how he’d wound up on in this career, much to his mother’s alarm. He’d gotten a whole shelf of illustrated biographies, and his first set of trick cards. He spent the rest of the summer poring over the pamphlet they came with, trying to master the ones tricky enough that he thought Julia might be impressed. In the last week before school started up again he had finally cracked cutting to the aces and been rewarded with her genuine delight, although he wonders in retrospect if he’d been using magic to help himself along. “I was obsessed with him that year.”

“Oh, I remember,” Julia says. “You wanted to be an escapist when you grew up.”

Quentin looks out the window. Grassy fields and low trees as far as he can see. The world seems flatter since they left the east coast. “Who wouldn’t? Even now I still think the water torture trick is awesome. You pull that off, you look like a miracle worker. And if you don’t, you drown. So, you know. Win-win.” The waterline rising down your face. Sinking into nostrils, covering your eyes. Your mouth would probably open of its own accord by that point, the body forcing itself to gasp for air whether you wanted to or not. It would take a while for the water to cut you off from oxygen completely, and even then you’d hold on. Lungs burning until the end.

Julia says, “It’s really not funny to me when you make those kinds of jokes.”

Quentin tenses. “Who says I’m joking?”

“That’s not helping.”

“Who says I’m trying to help?”

“How am I supposed to respond to that?” Julia says. “To any of it?”

Quentin shrugs. “I’m not looking for some specific response. Just — blowing off steam.”

“Okay,” Julia says, but not like it’s okay. Like she’s giving up on the conversation, which — good enough.

“He wasn’t actually born in Appleton,” Quentin says. “He was born in Budapest, but he told everyone it was Appleton.” Like his life was a locked box, and he stepped out of it and into the story that was easier to tell.

_Appleton, WI_

His skin looks like shit. Under the white bathroom light every line and crevice looks darker and deeper. Canyons being worn away in his face. The bags under his eyes are always there now, he feels. That permanent corpse-like shadow. Like a possessive echo of the death that let him go. Death like a jealous ex reminding him: You’re still mine. Don’t ever for a minute fucking forget it. You’re mine and you always were.

Also, he’s fucking breaking out.

In the bedroom down the hall Anya, 25 (interests: sewing, science fiction, talisman theory), is lying naked with her nearly white hair splayed around her on the damp pillowcase. He had to tell her to watch the teeth around his dick but she fucked like some proverbial minister’s daughter unleashing a lifetime of repression at once. He wonders if she’s waiting for him or if she’s letting herself drift off to sleep. He hopes she’s asleep. He doesn’t feel like dealing with the obligatory checklist of temporary affection. He should go back out, though, in case she’s waiting. He looks at his eyes in the mirror, trying to make them mean something. Trying to look at them and see: _That’s me. That’s my face. Those eyes and brows and the oil spill of blackheads across my nose and that pimple on my chin and that pimple on my forehead and just above my mouth that pink swelling beneath the skin already tender to the touch._ After a while his features start swimming in the field of his vision, blurring and drifting ever less human. He blinks a few times, shakes his head. The guy in the mirror is still — him and not. Someone familiar and someone gone. And in his place —

Houdini ran away from home, Quentin remembers, when he was twelve. Hopped a freight train in Milwaukee, got off at Kansas City. He tracked his family down a year later in New York, but maybe that’s where it started. Because who wouldn’t want more of that, once you had a taste: the power to escape.

_Madison, WI_

When he hears the door open he turns his head to see Julia step into the hotel room and raise her eyebrows as she catches sight of the beer bottles strewn along the wall.

“I was bowling,” Quentin says by way of explanation. He’d balled up the wrapper when he was done eating his sandwich and spent a while distracting himself by trying to use it to knock over the bottles. He’d meant to clean up after he got a strike but by then it had seemed like a lot of effort so he’d hoisted himself back onto the bed to lie down and stare into space instead.

“Not judging,” Julia says, meaning that she’s judging but doesn’t want to make a big thing about it, “but could you just, um — keep them on your side of the room, maybe?”

“Oh. Sure.” Duh. She smiles and heads into the bathroom and he sits up and casts an easy levitation spell to float them over.

Except they don’t move. He frowns, wondering if he’s mixed up the left and right hands, and tries again; tries the attraction spell with the Portuguese verbalization he learned for extra credit his first semester when he was still afraid of flunking out; tries a basic matter control spell, which would be more effort but should accomplish the same thing if he could get it to work at all; runs through every applicable variant of physical magic he knows, telling himself not to panic as his pulse speeds up with each failed attempt.

Julia comes out of the bathroom and stares at the bottles. “Uh, Q?”

“It’s not working,” he says. His voice sounds far away.

“What’s not working?”

“The spell — any of the spells, I’ve run through everything I know, it’s all easy shit, but it’s not, it’s not working, my —” He swallows, trying to sound calm. “My magic.”

Julia frowns. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I um.” He shakes his head. “I can’t move them.” On a whim he runs a quick decorative spell and sparks shoot easily across the room in a teal parabola. “It’s not everything,” he says, “I’ve been doing other magic, I’ve been doing the removal spell, I — I don’t know what it is.” Julia looks concerned. She opens her mouth like she’s about to say something, and he stands up. “Sorry, I’ll pick them up. I just — sorry.” He gathers them up, drops them in the bag they’ve been using to store recyclables from place to place.

“Maybe we should take you to a specialist,” Julia says. “There are magicians who have expertise in difficulties with magical flow. There might be one in Madison, or nearby. I can ask Fogg if he —”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” he says. His hands are shaking. They feel — they feel the same, there’s nothing wrong with his hands. So why can’t he — “I’m probably just tired, or I had one too many beers, or — whatever. I’m sure it’s fine.” He can see the gears behind her head already turning over the angles of the issue but he doesn’t want to be there to watch her puzzle it over so he says, “I’m just gonna step out to smoke, okay? I’ll be right back.” He doesn’t wait for her response before grabbing his jacket and heading out the door.

_Minneapolis, MN_

“How was therapy?” Quentin says when Eliot picks up.

If Eliot is caught off guard, he doesn’t show it. “It was — fine? Tough, but I think it was productive.”

Quentin draws his coat around him. It’s May but this far north it’s still fucking cold some days. “What’d you talk about?”

Eliot makes a considering hum. “That’s kind of private.”

“I thought you said we had no secrets,” Quentin says, because it sounds like the kind of thing a bitter ex-boyfriend would say.

“When have we ever said that?” Eliot says. “I’ve definitely never said that. I’m a Scorpio, I would never promise someone not to have secrets.”

Quentin switches the hand he’s using to hold the phone so he can put the other one in his pocket, trying to curl his knuckles into his sleeve. “What am I again?”

“Cancer.”

“The crab, right?” A line from some long-ago lit class pops into his head: _I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas…_ He feels like he should know what it’s from. Shakespeare, maybe? “What does that mean?”

“That you have way too many feelings,” Eliot says. “And at any given moment you’re either the sweetest person alive or a huge asshole.

“Oh,” Quentin says. “That’s —” He doesn’t really have anything to say to that. “Oh.”

Eliot laughs. Quentin can picture it: faintly superior, tilting his chin. “Yeah, the fact that you’re a Cancer is very _oh_. I have to say I was always kind of shocked by your Aries moon, but it’s making a lot more sense to me these days.”

“Why,” Quentin says, “what’s that about?”

“Well your moon sign is like your inner emotional life. It’s like the side that you only show to people who know you really well.” Eliot has his fucking explaining voice on. Quentin wants to steal his clothes and set them on fire. “And you’re a Cancer, and I mean like _such_ a Cancer, so I always felt like your big emotions were just your sun sign washing over everything. But Aries is ruled by Mars, god of war, right? It’s very aggro and impulsive. It’s the first sign of the twelve, the baby of the zodiac, so it can be kind of immature, not super future-oriented.”

“So now that I’m being a total dick you can see it."

“Basically, yeah.”

Across the parking lot a family gets out of a green mini-van — mom, dad, miscellaneous female relative, three kids. Two of the kids are involved in a playful argument while the oldest is glued to his phone. “What’s your moon sign?”

“Sagittarius,” Eliot says. “I love meeting new people and being helpful.”

“You do like those things,” Quentin mutters, almost to himself. Thinking of Eliot at the cottage pouring everyone drinks, Eliot lighting up at the sight of an unfamiliar guest. Asshole. 

“Yeah. Thank god I have Libra rising or I’d never get anything done.”

“What’s my rising sign?”

“I don’t remember. You need your birth time to look that one up because it changes every two hours, but if you don’t know it there’s a spell. I think someone else needs to do it for you, though.”

 _I should have been a pair of ragged claws…_ It’s iambic pentameter, but he doesn’t think it was Shakespeare. It sounds too modern. He suspects he’s going to feel stupid when he figures it out. “Okay, well, I should go,” he says. “We’re at a diner and Julia thinks I’m taking a smoke break. You know she quit?”

“We quit together, actually.” Eliot says.

Wow, Quentin… hates that. His fingers are tight around his phone. “How fucking wonderful for you.” Eliot starts to say something but Quentin feels suddenly like he’s going to throw up if he has to listen to him anymore so he hangs up. He stays out for another minute, feeling the air sting his skin and his fingers start to ache.

_Northbound on I-35_

“Have you been talking to Eliot?”

Quentin feels his grip tighten on the steering wheel. It seems hideously unfair of her to ambush him while he’s driving. “Who told?”

Julia doesn’t answer that. Probably Eliot told Margo told Josh told Alice told Kady told Julia, or something. Their fucking spiderweb of drama and misery. He remembers Alice, some weeks before he left New York: _Kady said she got up to go to the bathroom and you were just like sitting in the living room watching TV with the sound off at four in the morning?_ Like that was her fucking business. “Do you feel like that’s a good idea right now?”

“For him or for me?”

“I guess for both of you,” she says, “but you’re the one I’m concerned about.”

“I don’t need you to be concerned.”

“I don’t mean concerned like worried,” she says, even though she’s obviously worried, “I mean concerned like — like you’re my primary concern. You’re the one who’s my best friend.”

Quentin shrugs. “It’s fine. It’s not making things any worse.”

“But is it making things better?”

He almost says _There is no better_ but she’s going to totally freak out if he does so he doesn’t. “I don’t know, maybe? Maybe I want, like, closure. Is that a crime now?”

“It’s not a crime,” Julia says. Quentin waits for the implied _but_ , but it doesn’t come.

“Ragged claws,” he says, remembering. “Who’s that?”

“Ragged claws?”

“I should have been a pair —”

“— of ragged claws, right. Uh, Eliot, I think?” Quentin wants to kill himself. “As in T. S., I mean. Prufrock, right?”

“Right. Thanks.” Of course it’s fucking Prufrock. He did a fucking term paper on it, he should have known. Idiot.

_Duluth, MN_

“So,” Quentin says, smiling and leaning in. “What’s your sign?”

Marisol, 27, wavy black hair all the way down her back (interests: astrology, tarot, succulents), grins. “I’m a Gemini sun and moon with Pisces rising. What about you?”

“I think I’m a Cancer,” Quentin says. “That’s July, right?”

“Depends.” She’s predictably eager to explain it to him. “Early or late July?”

“The eleventh.”

“So yeah, your sun is in Cancer.”

Quentin sips his drink. Something expensive that tastes like an alcoholic popsicle. “So wait, you can have more than one sign?”

Marisol nods enthusiastically. Her curls bounce along her shoulders in waves. “So every planet has a sign it was in at the time you were born. Plus the moon, and your rising sign.”

“Huh,” Quentin says. “How do you find all this stuff out?”

“Oh, there’s like calculators on websites. You just need your birthday, place of birth, and the time you were born.”

“Oh shit,” Quentin says, trying to look disappointed. “I don’t know what time I was born.”

“Well that one’s mostly for your rising sign,” Marisol says. “But there’s actually a spell for it.”

Quentin raises his eyebrows. “Really? No way.”

She beams. “Yeah. You want me to do it for you?”

He laughs. “Wow, seriously? Yeah, that’d be great. What a fun surprise.” She giggles, wrinkling her nose, and starts tutting surreptitiously on the table.

It turns out he’s a Virgo rising. Whatever the fuck that means. He was honestly planning to make an excuse to leave after he got that out of her because Julia wanted to watch some documentary with him that just hit streaming tonight, but she orders another round and she asks about the Seam and she’s so in awe and he was so brave and so on and so on. Time hiccups in little eddies around him and he starts thinking about the curves beneath her dress. The pages are turning in their familiar order and he can’t figure out where to stop them so he winds up on her bed, hands cupping her ass, watching her shimmy out of her strapless bra, flat on his back remembering suddenly Prufrock again, _like a patient etherized upon a table_ , and then his hands are on her breasts and her tongue is in his mouth and his hips are moving up, up, up, and anything he’s remembering isn’t taking the shape of words.

_Southbound on I-35_

They’re driving from Duluth to Mason City. They’ve been driving from Duluth to Mason City for approximately nine hundred years. No turns, no stops, no curves, just trees and fields and fields and trees and the longest highway in, probably, the entire world. Quentin feels like he’s in a Twilight Zone episode. Like they’re going to get to Mason City and the sign will say Duluth and all his favorite books will be there but he won’t be able to read. Maybe that’s why he says, “You didn’t tell me you and Eliot quit smoking together.”

It’s his turn to drive but he can feel without looking at her the hesitation in the beat before she answers. “It’s a tough habit to break, so. It helped to have an accountability buddy.”

“When was this?” he asks.

“A while ago.”

“When I was dead?”

She — doesn’t sigh, but she may as well. “Yeah, we were — both kind of falling apart, and it was something we could — grab onto, while we were figuring everything else out. Like every day we didn’t smoke was another day where we could wake up the next morning and try again to get you back.”

“Oh,” he says. “Well, I’m glad my untimely demise inspired you both to make such positive life changes.”

“That’s not what it was —”

“What’s next on the agenda for your little self-improvement club?” It comes out nasty and he should take it back but — “Are you gonna do a sugar detox? Go vegan?”

“Q —”

“Are you gonna read Proust together? Maybe join a yoga class? Marie Kondo your shit?”

“Are you like, mad at me?” she says. “For quitting smoking?”

“No,” he says very evenly, “ _that_ would be _stupid_.”

“So then what is it?”

“It’s nothing,” he says, furious at her for nothing and furious at himself for being furious and furious at Eliot for existing. For quitting smoking and picking up the phone. For his fucking curly hair. “How much longer till we get to the exit?”

_Mason City, IA_

Astrology is bullshit. According to the internet, the stars say that Quentin is purposeful and trustworthy, but also impulsive and fiery, but also vulnerable yet aloof. One page opens the description by saying _Sun in Cancer natives have a strong survival instinct_ and he laughs out loud. That’s almost as funny as the Virgo rising blurb that describes him as “especially interested and concerned with physical health,” which he reads while smoking outside a Burger King. Meanwhile, apparently his moon sign means his life is a “series of emergencies,” which — whatever. Coincidence that tricks gullible people into finding meaning in the series of platitudes. No wonder Eliot is into this stuff. Quentin wonders what this hippie nonsense is telling Eliot about himself.

 _To others_ , he reads back at the hotel, _Scorpios seem to have plenty of willpower_. Well, _that’s_ satisfyingly fake. The only times Eliot has delayed gratification for longer than thirty seconds were as some kind of sexual power play, which doesn’t count. Quentin reads on. _This apparent patience is simply their powerful skills at strategy at work._ Sure. The king who got deposed like four separate times is a genius strategist.

 _Scorpio isn’t afraid of getting their hands (their bodies, their minds) dirty._ That’s —

_—God you’re fucking filthy. Aren’t you._

_—I…_

_—Say it._

_—I — yeah, yes, I’m — filthy, I’m dirty, I’m dirty, El — oh, fuck —_

_—That’s right. That’s good. You know I wouldn’t have it any other way right? I wouldn’t have anyone else._

_—I — El, can you —_

— stopped clocks. Quentin opens another beer and switches back over to the page on moon signs. Lunar Sagittarians are extraordinarily happy and easygoing — ha — outdoorsy types — double ha — hungry for knowledge, new experiences, and mind-expanding ideas — ha, ha, ha — and wonderful, inspiring teachers. Quentin is — not thinking about Eliot practicing a hand clap game with Teddy, and _definitely_ not thinking about Eliot’s weird virginity roleplay thing, and — he takes a drink. A long one. _It is hard to stay angry at a Lunar Sagittarian!_ , says the site, and Quentin thinks, _Fucking watch me._

_Cedar Rapids, IA_

“So — don’t get mad, but I did a little digging about your magic issue,” Julia says.

They’re at some trendy-ish restaurant because Julia said that after almost a month on the road she was dying to eat at a place with actual tablecloths. Quentin ate at a Panda Express drive through while she was experiencing things like local culture and charming shopping spots and unrecycled air, but she doesn’t need to know that. Plus he feels like if he doesn’t give her some time upright and sober-ish and publicly presentable soon she’s going to start scheming more aggressively around his wellness.

He picks up the menu, pretending to flip through it curiously. “Yeah?”

“I reached out to Lipson,” she goes on. “I didn’t say anything about you, or even that it was happening to anyone I knew — just made it sound like something I’d heard about, meeting and chatting with new magic users, and I was curious. She emailed me back, sent me some journal articles, things like that.”

On the list of appetizers they have brussels sprouts roasted with various spices he’s never heard of. He could order just that, to keep her from worrying. Claim a stomachache when she asks if that’s all he wants. “Anything useful?”

Julia closes her own menu and sets it aside. “There are cases of — so magic flows through different channels, right? That’s part of what’s responsible for what we think of as the disciplines here in the states, drawing mostly from the legacy of British magicians, although other magical traditions have their own classification systems — the Chinese schema is _super_ fascinating if you’re ever interested — anyway, the channels aren’t super well-understood at this time, and neither is how they interact with magic-users. Like, we don’t really know why people have disciplines, or if your discipline is something you’re born with or something that emerges from your experiences. We don’t even know why different magicians have different strengths and weaknesses, even at not very advanced levels of magic.”

“Like why I can never get Kady’s fucking potion to work.”

“Right,” Julia says. “Or why despite the fact that I can do way harder shit in my sleep, I _still_ can’t do a basic frame-leveling spell when I’m hanging something up.”

“Is it wrong that I find that kind of reassuring?”

Julia laughs. “No, please, enjoy my humiliation.” Her expression turns careful. “So — the mechanism is a mystery to us, is what I’m saying. But people have been known to lose — access, I guess you could say, or use of — one of the major channels, or a particular subset of a channel, following some kind of — relevant precipitating event. There was a woman in Ireland, I think, a naturalist, whose garden started withering after her husband died, for example. Or someone who, after his house burned down, he couldn’t work any kind of spells involving fire or heat.”

Quentin considers this information. “So, what,” he says. “I can’t move shit because…” He racks his brain, trying to think of the last time he interacted with some related spell. “Because back in Chicago I had levitation sex and almost threw my back out when we crashed onto the floor?”

“Maybe,” Julia says. “Or maybe because of some things that might have happened with a certain telekinetic ex of yours.”

Quentin gives a bitter laugh. “Cool. So we’ve found _yet another_ way that Eliot Waugh has fucked me over sideways with a pitchfork.” He turns the page. Maybe he does want dinner. “So in your research, did you come across anything actually helpful? Like, is there a treatment? Did any of these people get better?”

“Most of the ones I read about did eventually regain full functioning of their magical flow,” Julia says. “But the treatment is — it’s not a magical wound, it’s a psychic one. It’s not about like, reactivating your meridiens or following a ritual protocol. They could work their magic again when they’d managed to really process whatever it was that triggered the blockage.”

He clenches his jaw. “So, they…”

Julia shrugs. “Usually went to therapy. A few found success with something else, but it was still — like the naturalist, she took up a serious meditation practice. Someone who lost their ability to tap into musical magic joined a local choir for a while, and eventually it came back to them. A _lot_ of them went to therapy. Most of the case studies I read were written up by clinicians.”

“Fascinating.” Maybe he wants a burger. They have all those fancy-place toppings here, goat cheese and fried eggs and caramelized onions. A burger and some kind of potato-based side. And the brussels sprouts, why the fuck not. And a drink, he definitely needs a fucking drink. And dessert, because if he can’t have one single goddamn day where he doesn’t want to slice off all his skin with a potato peeler and dive into a salt mine and now he can’t even have his own fucking magic then he deserves a fucking molten chocolate cake. With the organic vanilla bean ice cream.

Julia leans in like she’s readying herself for something. “Q, I really feel like if you…”

“So what are you getting?” Quentin says. “And hey, how was downtown? Find anything good?”

Julia looks disappointed. That’s not his fucking problem.

_Des Moines, IA_

“I’ve been fucking other people.”

“Hi, Quentin,” Eliot says into the phone. “Lovely to hear from you, as always.”

“Like a lot of other people,” he says.

Eliot takes a moment to respond. Quentin imagines his face, his lips just slightly tensed, eyes shifting as he runs through possibilities. “Why are you telling me that?”

“I don’t know.” Quentin fidgets with the hem of his shirt. “Because for some godforsaken reason I can’t stop thinking about you and every time I think about you I’m either fucking you or kicking you in the nuts, so. This seemed like the logical next step.”

“I don’t really follow your reasoning,” Eliot says, “but I guess I can’t argue with it.”

“No you can’t,” Quentin agrees. “Does it hurt your feelings?”

“Do you want it to hurt my feelings?”

Quentin says, “I honestly don’t know.”

“You see how that’s a concerningly fucked up thing to say, right?” Eliot says. “Like, just objectively. Setting aside the particulars of our context here.”

“Sure,” Quentin says. He’s feeling agreeable today, relatively. He is also very, very stoned. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I have to think about it.” Quentin imagines it again: his thinking face, chin tilting, mouth moving minutely as his ideas evolve. God, doesn’t he get tired of being so fucking predictable? “I guess not.”

Quentin finds this unsatisfactory. Maybe he does want it to hurt. “You guess not?”

“I mean we’re not dating.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Quentin says. “I mean it matters, because it means I can fuck who I want and you don’t get to have an opinion about it, but — I’m not dating Alice, but if she told me she was fucking a bunch of other people it would hurt my feelings.”

“Really?” Eliot sounds skeptical.

“No,” Quentin admits. He kind of hates proving him right. The weed came from some herbalist at the safehouse in Cedar Rapids and he thinks it might have been a mistake. “But I think it would if I still had feelings.”

“You don’t not have feelings.”

Quentin ignores this. “Plus, I dumped Alice. You actually wanted to date me.”

“I wanted to date a version of you that was not exclusively composed of the most dickish parts of your personality, yes,” Eliot says. “But at the moment you seem really committed to the bit, so right now it’s like, what exactly am I missing?”

“Wow,” Quentin says. “Harsh. But fair.” He manages not to tell Eliot that he thinks that the most dickish parts of his personality are maybe the only ones that made it back from the Underworld, but it’s a struggle. Next time he buys weed off some hedge he is going to ask a lot more questions about what exactly “revelatory” means.

“I’m not exactly the jealous type about sex,” Eliot says. “I mean if you had wanted an open relationship I think I could have worked with that.”

“I don’t want any relationship,” Quentin says. “With anyone. Maybe ever.”

“Yes, Quentin, that’s been made abundantly clear.”

“Okay, well.” Quentin kicks his shoes off and lies back down on the hotel bed. “In the meantime I do want sex, so. Julia set me up on this app for magicians, Glindr? I don’t really get the name.”

“It’s like Tindr but it’s Glinda,” Eliot says. “ _Wizard of Oz_? The good witch? Witches, magic?”

“Oh. I thought it was like a friend-of-Dorothy thing but then I kept matching with straight women on it, so. That makes more sense.”

Eliot chuckles. Quentin’s blood boils. “No one says friend-of-Dorothy anymore.”

“Oh and you know this from all the — the hot gay nightclubs in Fillory?” Quentin demands.

“Yeah,” Eliot says with a laugh, “me and the boys were talking about it down at the discotheque. So are you getting lots of matches?”

“I am, actually,” Quentin says. “You know, it turns out I might be hot.”

“I’ve heard rumors to that effect.”

“Plus I saved the world, so.” Quentin shrugs before remembering Eliot can’t see him. “People tend to find that kind of thing attractive.”

“Mm,” Eliot says. “Does it really get them going when you explain to them that you were committing suicide?”

“I really feel like that’s an oversimplification of events,” Quentin argues. “Also honestly some of them yeah, I think it kind of does. Did you know that some people think it’s like sexy when a guy is super sad?”

“Everyone knows that,” Eliot says. “Have you watched like any TV ever? Like in your life?”

“Yeah, but —”

“If you make an MST reference I’m going to hang up.”

“You wouldn’t.” Quentin considers going through with it to test him, but he doesn’t. “So I feel like this could have been useful information to me like years ago. That’s the kind of shit they should teach in sex ed.”

“My sex ed was all about keeping your flower pure for marriage, so. Literally anything would have been an improvement.”

“I mean I get why the condom on the banana shit would have been useful in the old days, but now you can just look that stuff up online,” Quentin says. “You can’t Google how to use your psychological problems and personality flaws to get laid.”

“So you’re like, what,” Eliot says, “rolling across the country fucking your death groupies? That seems healthy.”

“Yeah,” Quentin laughs, “that’s definitely the most fucked up thing about the past five years of my life. All the pussy I’m drowning in right now.”

“Wow,” Eliot says drily, “you’re really making it hard to move on.”

Quentin pauses. “I’m fucking guys, too. But the idiom doesn’t really have the same ring if — whatever.” He sits up against the headboard, opens the beer on the nightstand. “And they’re not all death groupies. Some of them are normal, I think. But there are a lot of them. I’m basically a slut now.”

“I don’t think you should call yourself that.”

Quentin rolls his eyes. “I don’t mean it in a bad way. I’m reclaiming it.”

“No yeah but like, it’s a really gendered word, you know?” Eliot says. “So like if a woman calls herself a slut, I mean, I’m kind of at a point in my life where I _don’t_ necessarily think that’s empowering for her, but I’m not going to argue with her about it, because that’s not my business. But a man, I dunno. It’s different.”

“I didn’t realize I was calling Julia in eleventh grade after she got really into that Katha Pollitt book,” Quentin says. Then he feels bad. “I don’t mean that. That was dismissive. Feminism is important. I’m a feminist.”

“Truly an ally to women everywhere.”

“So how come I can’t call myself a slut because I’ve fucked like four people this week,” Quentin wonders, “but you can call me a cockslut when I’m gagging on your dick?”

Eliot gives a long exhale. His eyes closed, forehead carefully smooth. Ugh. “Our sexual landscapes are not always politically correct.”

Quentin snorts at that, coming from Eliot. “Is that why you were so into me acting like a virgin even though you think virginity is a social construct?”

“Virginity _is_ a social construct,” Eliot says. “And I mean, yeah? I guess?”

Quentin thinks about — he doesn’t think about it. “Alright, well. I should go.”

“Do you have someone else to fuck?”

“I was saying that to be polite about not wanting to talk to you anymore,” Quentin says, “but yeah actually I do.”

“Are they hot?”

Eliot asks this like he’s asking if Quentin liked some movie, which — god, he’s so weird. “His picture is pretty good. And it says he’s tall.”

“Oh really,” Eliot says, and Quentin winces. Mistake, mistake, mistake. He can fucking _hear_ Eliot smirking. “You like tall guys, huh?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Quentin says. “Your ego is not as attractive as you think it is.”

“It was a simple question.” His batting lashes, his innocent _who, me?_ eyes — the worst!

“It was not,” Quentin says sourly. “Anyway everyone likes tall guys. And even if it _was_ about you, that wouldn’t mean anything. It’s just the duckling thing.”

“The _what?_ ”

“Like —” Quentin catches himself gesturing with his free hand and stops it. “Sexuality is like ducklings. You know what I mean.”

“No one on Earth or any other realm knows what the fuck you mean when you say sexuality is like ducklings.”

“Like ducklings,” Quentin insists, “they — they see a stick and the stick is their mom now. Imprinting, whatever. Or like I had this crush on my AP American history teacher so I’m always gonna have a thing for guys with curly hair. And honestly I thought period sex was gross before I did it with Alice but now it’s like a huge turn-on for me.”

“That’s kind of regressive of past you.”

Quentin puts on his most obnoxious and snootiest Eliot voice to say, “Our sexual landscapes are not always politically correct.” Then in his normal voice he says, “By the way, I’m a Virgo rising, but astrology is bullshit so it doesn’t matter anyway.” He hangs up before Eliot can say otherwise.

_Fort Dodge, IA_

Even Julia’s spirit for genial tourism flags in Fort Dodge. Plus it rains nearly the whole time they’re there. They kill the afternoon in their motel room, Julia reading probably some recently published scholarship on her laptop, Quentin watching _30 Rock_ with headphones in on his. It reminds him of weekends back in college, the two of them sharing space, quietly absorbed in their personal tasks, occasionally getting each other’s attention to ask for feedback on some phrasing or share a joke or complaint. He liked those weekends, he thinks. The person he was then felt peaceful and close, working in companionable silence. So he doesn’t know why he can’t make it through an episode without stepping outside to smoke or walk to the vending machine or just pace the halls until his nerves settle enough to come back. Of all the skills he died with, this doesn’t feel like one that should be hard to get back.

When his phone buzzes he stares at it for the long moment it takes to process the fact that someone is calling him. Feeling like he’s in a dream or maybe being punked he pauses Hulu and looks at the screen before accepting the call.

“Margo,” he says, trying not to sound surprised. “Hi.”

“What the fuck do you think you’re playing at, Coldwater,” Margo says.

That’s — about where he expected them to be, yeah. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean what I fucking said,” she snaps. “This reckless asshole act isn’t you, and it’s getting fucking old pussyfooting around while everyone waits for you to snap out of it.”

“Maybe it is me,” Quentin says. He used to be so scared of Margo, he marvels. The old him was kind of a wuss. “I have an Aries moon, you know. Besides, I thought you liked reckless assholes. Why the fuck else did you become friends with Eliot?”

Margo ignores this, predictably. “What are you hoping to get out of this? Seriously, what is even in it for you?”

Quentin wonders: what is or could ever be in anything for me anywhere ever. What could I ever have that would — “That’s not really your fucking business, is it.”

There’s a long silence. Good. “Fine,” she says. “If that’s how you fucking feel, then go ahead and piss all over your life. You have my goddamn blessing. But leave Eliot out of your stupid show.”

“Oh, what, am I threatening his newfound psychological stability?” Quentin says. “Is his therapist concerned about poor fragile tragic fucking Eliot?”

“He doesn’t deserve this,” Margo says. “I’m not even sure you do, but like you said. That’s none of my fucking business.”

“Correct,” Quentin says. He doesn’t feel mad, he realizes. He feels very still inside. Like a lake on a windless night. Like stone. “And Eliot’s an adult, so if you’re so worried about him, take it up with him. I didn’t put a gun to his head to make him pick up the phone.” He hangs up, half-expecting her to call right back. Margo hates not having the last word. But the phone stays silent, which — good. He didn’t want to talk to her anymore. Or at all.

Julia is watching him. She looks like she wants to say something but not until he says something first. Quentin closes his laptop. “I’ll be right back,” he says, grabbing his cigarettes and his room key and heading out the door. When he gets back he unpauses the episode on Matt Damon as the sensitive pilot sobbing on Liz’s couch _I want a grown-up love!_ and he closes the window. Maybe he’ll switch to _Always Sunny_ for a while.

_Omaha, NE_

“Do you think astrology is real?”

Julia looks up from her BLT. “I don’t know, maybe?”

Quentin scoffs. “Seriously?”

“I mean, I don’t think it’s as definitive or clear-cut as your typical horoscopes app says it is, but —” Julia shrugs, smiling quizzically. “We’re literal magicians, Q. And it’s well documented that the earth’s position relative to known celestial bodies impacts circumstances for spell-casting. There’s all sorts of shit you have to modify or alter depending on the time of year and the phases of the moon. I know Josh incorporates a ton of astrological data into his cultivation projects in ways way beyond what you’ll find in the textbooks, and it seems to work out for him. So clearly astrology _is_ real, in that sense — which is how it was used even by people without magic back in like the middle ages. This personality astrology stuff is a lot newer, and yeah, most of it is bullshit. But is it really that crazy that if we know the stars and planets influence the conditions for magic use, they might influence other things, too?”

Quentin shifts his weight in his seat. He can’t get comfortable. “I guess not.”

Julia grins. “But maybe I just want to think that because astrology sites always tell me I love to be better than people because I’m a Capricorn.”

“That does sound like you,” Quentin agrees. He doesn’t want to think about what astrology sites say about him. _The emotional ties that bind to those closest are of primary concern. For this reason, Cancer is strongly associated with family and domestic life._ He points to the tall frothy drink next to Julia’s plate, nearly untouched. “Do you not want your milkshake?”

Julia raises her eyebrows. “The milkshake that _you_ made me order?” she says pointedly, which — he doesn’t see how that’s relevant. “It’s too sweet for me.” She nudges it towards him.

It is too sweet. It’s way too sweet, kind of nauseating actually. He doesn’t want it once it’s in his mouth, but he drinks the whole thing anyway, sucking at the straw until it’s sputtering at the froth on the bottom of the glass.

_Lincoln, NE_

It’s their first time in a while hanging out together in a hedge bar. Quentin can’t tell if Julia is in the mood to have fun or if she’s there to chaperone him, but either way it’s reassuring to watch her enjoy herself in his presence for a while. She winds up embroiled in a darts tournament, which feels right. For a few hours things feel more normal than they have.

On his way to the bar to order another round for himself and a few others some asshole muscling his way through the not particularly dense crowd for no apparent reason shoves into him, sending him careening into the wall, his glass slipping from his fingers to the floor where with his fucking luck of course it lands at the precise angle to shatter. He rolls his eyes, then remembers where he is and goes ahead and sets up for a quick Knapp casting.

The pieces don’t move.

He stares at the glass unmoving on the ground, feeling heat prickling the back of his neck while his heartbeat fills his ears. This isn’t — he’s done this a million times, he could do the tuts in his sleep, cupped palm beneath the dominant hand, he knows the motion like he knows how to read, and it’s not fucking levitation or gravitational refusal or matter control, it’s just a minor mending, it’s easy, it’s basic, it’s —

— his.

He tries the spell again, ignoring the _no, no, no, no, no_ rising in volume in his brain. He tries Kawasaki and Boucher, Diaz and Abramowitz, even fucking Dixon which is always a pain in his ass, and — _no, no, no, no, no_ — nothing.

He can’t stop looking at the broken pieces, lying where they fell.

Someone calls out that there’s glass and someone else’s magic winds up sending the pieces — he doesn’t watch to see where they wind up. His hands are shaking. He needs — he needs to breathe, remember how to breathe, and then he needs a drink, and then he needs to find Julia and go — not _home_ , they’re thousands of miles from home and he doesn’t know that he’s ever going to be welcome back in New York anyway, but that’s the phrase that comes to his mind. That’s what he wants. Find Julia and go home.

At the bar he gets his gin and tonic and sits for a moment sipping it to calm down. He doesn’t want to freak Julia out or initiate some big conversation. He doesn’t even know if this is permanent. He could just be drunk. Maybe mending spells are more susceptible to celestial circumstances than he’s remembering. That was never his strong suit at school. He can tell her he’s just tired, and they can leave, and he can look up any modifications he might have forgotten about, and depending on what he finds maybe he can ask her about —

“Hey,” says a voice. “You here alone?”

Quentin turns to see a woman his age, more or less, reddish-brown hair — auburn? Is that what auburn is? — and freckles. “I am alone,” he says because it’s the first thing that pops into his head. “Or — no, actually —” He shakes his head. “I’m here with my friend — I was actually just going to find her —” He glances over his back, trying to spot Julia through the crowd. He can’t see her, but that’s one of the drawbacks of having a best friend who stopped growing in the sixth grade.

“Can your friend wait?” The woman sidles in next to him, face friendly, body turned towards his.

“I — guess so,” he says, confused. He feels dazed, like he’s having trouble following what’s happening. Part of him is still by the wall staring at the broken glass indifferent to his broken magic and part of him is hustling over to tell Julia it’s time to go and part of him is asking this girl questions about her name and her hobbies and if she has any pets because — because she sat next to him and that’s what happens next.

They finish their drinks; he buys the next round and they finish those too. The girl — she told him her name but he wasn’t listening and he didn’t ask her to repeat it and now it feels weird to ask — seems — fine? But he didn’t want this tonight, he remembers. He came here with Julia. It was feeling normal. He was going to have a normal night, the kind of night he’s started doubting his capacity to have, but then he dropped a glass and it broke and his magic —

“I’ve had a lot of fun talking to you,” the girl says, “but do you maybe want to get out of here?”

— he was going to tell Julia _my magic broke, like the magic that should be mine, that shouldn’t have anything to do with fucking Eliot, it broke and I don’t know what that fucking means, can we get out of here, please_ , and then she would look worried and she would nod and lead them to the door and call a car and back at the hotel she would be so fucking nice to him and so fucking worried because she cares about him so fucking much —

“Yeah,” he says, “that sounds great.” He kisses her to seal the deal.

-

Quentin winds up meeting Julia back at the hotel the next morning, just as she’s walking out to the car. He gives her what feels like a clumsy wave as he approaches.

“Hey,” she says, smiling with some nervous undercurrent, “you kind of disappeared last night.”

“Oh,” he realizes. “Sorry — I met some girl at the bar, and we. You know.”

“I do know,” Julia says. “Just — if you’re going to bounce like that, do you mind letting me know? I didn’t know where you’d gone, is all.”

Quentin shakes himself. “Oh, sure. Sorry about that.”

“No worries,” she says. “Just, for the future.” She’s holding out the keys for some reason he can’t put together. Probably to indicate they should get going. He steps forward but misjudges the height of the curb and stumbles, swaying on his feet as she helps him right himself.

“Shit,” he says, “sorry.”

Julia frowns at him. “Have you been drinking?”

Quentin shrugs. “We went to brunch, what’s the big deal?” This is true, if by “we” you mean “Quentin” and by “brunch” you mean “drinking his way through a six-pack he’d illusioned to look like green smoothies in the parking lot of a drugstore a mile from her house.”

Julia gives a tight smile. “Not a big deal, just — it was your turn to drive.”

Quentin blinks. “Shit, sorry, Jules. I totally forgot.” All these apologies, he thinks. He should probably feel sorrier than he does. “I can do a double shift later.”

She shakes her head. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Let’s just get on the road, okay?” She lets herself into the driver’s seat and he walks around the car to join her and he decides to keep his broken magic to himself for now. Hearing it like this, she would just worry.

_Topeka, KS_

Quentin opens his eyes reluctantly in the glare of morning to the now familiar sight of a glass of water and a few drops of green on a hotel table next to his bed. He went home with someone last night (Siobhan, 23, asked him to bind her to the bed with a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs with a face like she thought she was blowing his mind with the request, which — it seemed polite to play along after that; interests: politics, mixology, BD/SM) but he couldn’t fall asleep afterwards and he’d snuck out around three in the morning. He hopes he didn’t wake Julia when he arrived.

He can hear her voice coming from the other end of the room, by the door, talking to someone on the phone. “Yeah, it’s not my _favorite_ part of the country,” she says with a laugh. “But I’m trying to keep an open mind.”

She sounds — relaxed. He hasn’t been hearing that voice of hers much lately. He wonders who she’s talking to, and feels a weird bolt of jealousy over the fact that he doesn’t know.

“No, we have a bunch more stops on the way,” she says. “These states all have so much room for so few people.” Pause; laughter. “I _am_ a brat. I’ve never pretended otherwise!”

It’s probably Kady, he reasons. They have their weird trauma-bonded closeness that seems to have worked out whatever issues came between them in the past. Could be Alice or even Josh, maybe, but he can’t see either of them calling her a brat. Eliot would, but — it’s too fucking early to entertain that possibility.

“He’s — okay, I think,” she’s saying, voice turning serious. “Well — not actually okay, but — I don’t know. I don’t know what ‘okay’ even looks like here, what I’m supposed to —” Pause. “I know, but — I know. But neither has his life, you know?”

They’re talking about him, Quentin realizes, flushing with embarrassment. He gives a noisy yawn.

“— I gotta get going, but we’ll talk again soon, okay?” Laughing again. “Yeah, you too. Bye.” Julia rounds the corner to come into his view and smiles brightly. “Hey, you up?” He doesn’t ask her who was on the phone. In a weird way it’s kind of comforting to pretend she’s hiding something, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> astrological notes from cafeastrology or other sites that pop up in the first page of google results for relevant placements that i was too lazy to make note of; yes, i changed quentin's birthday to give him an aries moon.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some specific content notes beyond the blanket warnings for the fic; check the end notes to see them.

_Tulsa, OK_

“Do you think I’m a sociopath?”

Eliot says, “I have got to stop picking up on these calls.”

“Did your therapist say that?” Quentin sneers.

“Actually she did,” Eliot says. “But I was already thinking about it, which is why I brought it up.”

Quentin picks at his cuticle. “So why’d you pick up today?”

“Oh, you know,” Eliot says mildly, “probably because my dad beat me a lot when I was a kid, so I don’t love myself now.”

Quentin jerks up, sitting on the edge of the bed. “What the hell, Eliot.”

“Oh, what,” Eliot says, “you’re the only one allowed to be flippant about all their fucking damage?”

“No, but —” Quentin shakes his head. “Shit, now I feel like an asshole.”

“Well, good.” He sounds so goddamn smug.

“Good?” Quentin echoes. “So you’re like exploiting your childhood trauma to guilt-trip me?”

“No,” Eliot says, “I’m exploiting my childhood trauma to be obnoxious. But you’re being an asshole, so you should feel like an asshole.”

“How am I being an asshole?” Quentin demands. “Name one thing.”

“Uh, how about, you keep calling your ex who told you he’s in love with you — right after therapy, Quentin, when I’m like already raw and shit — to say wildly inappropriate things into the phone?”

“But you keep picking up,” Quentin says. “Are you like secretly hoping one of these days I’m gonna call and say let’s get married?”

“I don’t care about marriage.”

“Why do you always say that when it’s obviously not true,” Quentin says, annoyed. “You can’t possibly still be hoping these are going to turn out well.”

Eliot gives a good-natured laugh. Quentin wants to steal all of his clothes and set them on fire. “That would be pretty dumb of me, yeah.”

“Well but, shit —” Quentin leans forward, stomach churning uncomfortably. Which, granted, could be the wine. “Am I like taking advantage of your trauma? Like I don’t —” He searches for something a therapist might say. “I don’t want you to be using me to hurt yourself because that’s what you know, or whatever.”

“Right,” Eliot says. “You want to be the one in charge of hurting me.”

“I — no,” Quentin says, discomfited. “Who says I _want_ to hurt you?”

“So you just don’t _care_ about hurting me,” Eliot says. “That’s _much_ better, thank you.”

“That’s not what I said,” Quentin protests. But it is kind of hard to argue with, if you look at like, the facts. “Shit. Maybe you _should_ stop picking up.”

“Oh I definitely should,” Eliot says. “But, you know, I’m the one who convinced myself it meant something it didn’t when I fucked my messed-up ex while he was shitfaced and twelve hours out from a break-up, so. You don’t need to have a master’s degree to see how that was obviously not a great call.”

“So what,” Quentin says, trying to puzzle it out, “you feel like you owe me?” He doesn’t want Eliot to feel _obligated_. That would completely ruin the point.

“No, just…” Eliot sighs. Quentin can hear inanimate shifting in the background like he’s opening a door and walking into a different room. “It’s a fucked up situation, Quentin. Hating you isn’t going to make it less fucked up.”

“I don’t know,” Quentin says. “Hating you is working out pretty well for me.”

Eliot laughs again. Quentin stops feeling bad. “Yeah. You’re obviously doing really great.”

“I am,” Quentin says. “Thank you for noticing.”

“So,” Eliot says conversationally, “fuck anyone good this week?”

“Um.” Quentin frowns, startled. “Do you really want to know?”

“I don’t know,” Eliot says; Quentin can _see_ his fucking performatively casual shrug, the dickwad. “What else is there to talk about?”

“I have a very busy, involved life,” Quentin says.

“You don’t.”

“I do,” Quentin insists.

“What season of _30 Rock_ are you on?”

“Who says I’m watching _30 Rock_?”

“Quentin…”

Quentin could just lie. He could just lie and then Eliot wouldn’t have to know he was fucking right. “Six.”

Eliot makes a dismissive noise with his tongue. “That’s the worst one.”

“I know, but seven is like perfect and it’s not as good if you skip straight to it.”

“Does that pretty much cover your non-sexual extracurriculars?”

Quentin sighs. “Yeah, I guess. Um.” He lies back on his bed, swinging his legs out in front of him as he thinks through the past few days. “There was a guy who was into like, erotic cryomancy. Pretty memorable experience. Dude in the bathroom at a hedge party who spent the whole time talking in a really bad fake British accent but was pretty good with his dick. Oh, and — a girl who had her tongue pierced, that was kind of cool.”

“How was the sex?”

Eliot asks this like it is the most normal question in the world. Quentin feels like he is going insane. Like any second the ceiling is going to open up and Henry Fogg is going to parachute out of it dressed as Willy Wonka because reality has broken. “I — good, I guess? I mean everyone got off. I came pretty hard in at least one of those. Is this seriously what you want to talk about?”

“Were any of them better than me?”

 _Fucking figures._ “What if I said yes,” Quentin says. “What if I said that actually, getting a blow job from a girl with a tongue ring took me to heights of eroticism and orgasm of which I had never even previously dreamed?”

“Hmmmm,” Eliot says. His head tilting, mouth curling slightly upwards. Quentin hates him. “Well then I guess I wouldn’t believe you.”

Quentin _hates_ him. “Maybe it was.”

That fucking, _fucking_ little laugh. “It wasn’t.” Quentin could knock his fucking teeth out. “But I bet you did like it.”

“What’s not to like about a blow job?”

“Someone throwing herself at you, tearing your clothes off like she’s going to die if she doesn’t see you naked,” Eliot goes on. What the fuck is he doing? “I bet that felt good, being able to get someone a little desperate for you. I bet you didn’t even have to try that hard, and that made you like it more.” Quentin opens his mouth to argue but he can’t get the words out. Because he did, he did like that he had barely started kissing her and she slid her hands up his chest for just a second before starting to pull at his buttons, and he’s — he’s not thinking about Eliot pouncing on him on a summer evening like he’d been waiting to touch his body all day, he’s not —

“It took me a long time to figure out why you were always so into the uncontrollable lust shtick,” Eliot says. “But you’re just as vain as me, babe. You just don’t like to talk about it, because it’s one of like nine hundred things you think you’re not allowed to think or care about.”

“That’s not — no,” Quentin says. He swallows. His pulse is speeding up and running hot and starting to stir in —

“You have these weird masculinity complexes, like, boys aren’t supposed to care about how they look, or whatever. But deep down inside, where you only ever even showed _me_ by accident, you like to look good. You like for other people to think you look good. And as I have explained to you seven billion times, we’re a visual species, and that’s okay. It’s okay that you got off on how much this girl with a tongue ring wanted to look at you. God, you’re so fucked up I bet you felt weird about it even in the moment, didn’t you?” Quentin’s dick twitches and he closes his eyes because — the sounds in her throat that said she wanted him and the way he was drunk but not drunk enough that he couldn’t hear the voice in his head saying _want me, want me, want me_ , no matter how hard he tried — the same voice he used to hear when Eliot gasped into his mouth, years and years of it and still he couldn’t quite believe —

“A pretty girl,” Eliot says, his voice low and silky, “down on her knees for you — I know your neuroses are like, carved into the fossil record, but that’s _got_ to ease some of the sting of all those Friday nights alone, right?”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Quentin says, but horribly it comes out breathless because his body is mutinying against him yet again. He presses the heel of his hand against his crotch in an attempt at appeasement.

“All those years you couldn’t get anyone to look at you, all those years you thought you’d _never_ get anyone to look at you — too nerdy, too unpopular, too ugly, too awkward — and now some hot chick you’ve never even met before is on the fucking floor for sad, dorky Quentin Coldwater’s cock, because it turns out everyone else was wrong about you all along.” That is — _so_ mean, and so — _not_ his business, and — so, _so_ hot, what the _fuck_ , Quentin thinks in alarm, rubbing at his hard-on through his jeans. “And the thing is, I think a part of you feels guilty about it _every time_ because you’re so embarrassed to admit you might have an ego like every other human on the planet. Like it’s such a crime to enjoy the fact that someone hot wants to gag on your dick. But I honestly feel like you get off on the guilt, too. Coming into her mouth, feeling like it shouldn’t feel _quite_ this good — which is stupid — but feeling too good to stop, which takes it to the next level because you feel like you’re getting away with something — is that pretty much how it went down?”

“Not — exactly,” Quentin manages, because he didn’t come in her mouth, he nudged her off and they — but — his face is so hot and his dick is so — _god_ —

“Are you hard?” Eliot says. Friendly-like. Quentin is going to drive straight to New York and walk through that stupid clock and track Eliot down and murder him with his bare hands. “I bet you’re hard.”

“Are you fucking with me?” Quentin demands.

“Maybe,” Eliot says, sounding aggravatingly calm. “Maybe I’m sick of being the only one getting fucked with. Maybe I’m feeling a little mean, after a month of demented post-therapy phone calls with my unhinged ex-boyfriend. But you like that too, right? When I’m a little mean?”

Quentin inhales through his nose. “Eliot…”

“Did you start touching yourself yet?”

Quentin takes his hand off his crotch. “No. I’m not even hard,” he lies.

Eliot — has the nerve to fucking _laugh_. “Sure. But good. Don’t.”

“Don’t…”

“Don’t start touching yourself until I fucking tell you to. Did that make you harder?” Quentin grits his teeth, because: yes, Jesus. “I’ve never fucked anyone who liked rules as much as you do. That’s your Virgo fucking rising, babe.”

“You don’t control me,” Quentin says. But he fists the stiff motel sheets, trying not to move his hips.

“No,” Eliot says. “But you like it when I pretend to, right? It makes you feel safe, like for once in your life you’re doing everything right instead of just constantly fucking everything up.” Where the fuck is all of this coming from, Quentin wonders in agony, and why is it _so infuriatingly_ — “That’s why — even though you are harder than an eighth grader watching _Baywatch_ —”

“ _Baywatch?_ What fucking century are you from?”

“— you still haven’t touched yourself. Have you.”

“I…” God! What gives him the fucking right? “Well maybe I want to fuck with you too.”

“Is that not what you have been doing?”

“Maybe I’m gonna, I’m gonna turn the tables,” Quentin says desperately, “and then _you’ll_ be the hard one. How would you like _that_ , huh?”

“Oh please.” Eliot laughs, not unkindly. Dickhead. “You have many erotic gifts, darling, but this is not one of them.”

“You don’t know that,” Quentin insists.

“We fucked for fifty years,” Eliot said, “and I still couldn’t get you to talk dirty to me like even a little. You get too in your head about it.” Quentin fumes because Eliot is telling the truth. Fifty years he spent blushing like a high schooler every time Eliot coaxed him into saying so much as _yes, please_. Fifty years and he could get off on a blindfolded spanking with Eliot’s come crusted on his back in character as a Fillorian manservant being punished for his obsession with sucking cock but he could only ever offer up his own words about it with ears burning in half-finished sentences mumbling and looking at the floor or when he was too inebriated to remember later what he’d said. “It’s fine, your uptightness is kind of part of the appeal. But it also means you can’t do phone sex.”

But that was before.

Quentin closes his eyes and says, “So why don’t you teach me then?”

There’s silence long enough that Quentin can tell he has an in. “You know I read that lunar Sagittarians love to teach people things.” _There’s a bit of a teacher in Moon in Sagittarius, and definitely a helpful spirit._

“Why were you researching my natal chart?”

“It’s true, right?” he presses. “You like to teach — sex things.” Distantly he notes that that’s not the sexiest phrasing but he’s too wound up to care. “You taught me, you taught me a lot. Taught me to suck cock like I meant it. Taught me to take your huge fucking dick all the way in. Taught me to fuck you so hard you forgot your name. Taught me to beg for it.” The words sound idiotic to his own ears but if he’s right — and he thinks he’s right, Eliot’s not the only one who figured some psych 101 shit out across half a fucking century — it won’t matter that he’s talking like a letter out of the _Penthouse_ reject pile. “And you, you loved it. You love that you took sweet, nerdy, _uptight_ Q, and you showed him how to be a, a fuck machine.”

“Fuck machine?” Eliot says. “That’s what you’re going with?” But there’s a breathy little catch in his voice. Quentin smirks a little to himself.

“It doesn’t really matter what I’m going with, does it,” Quentin says. “Because you’re already thinking about it, and you fucking love thinking about it. You love thinking about how I was — so tense, so shy, so fucking _repressed_ — I was so fucking lost before you. I had no idea I could like sex that much. I had no idea I could be that good at it. And — this is the part that really gets you going — without you I might never have figured it out. Only you could do it. Only you could be so — so fucking _patient_ , right? Doing every little thing right. You want to talk fucking ego, you _love_ thinking that no one else could have taken such good _care_ of me. And definitely no one else could have made me want it that bad. So bad I didn’t even care how embarrassing it was. Me, the guy who cares about how embarrassing _everything_ is. Only you could turn me on so much I forgot.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say —”

“Shut the fuck up,” Quentin snaps. Eliot hisses _oh, fuck_. Good. Quentin will fucking show him. “This is what your virginity thing was always really about, right? You didn’t care about the first time shit — you just wanted an excuse to relive how good it felt to take someone who didn’t know anything, and show him how to feel good.” He shifts his voice into the tremulous clueless virgin register he used to use. “God, El, is that — is that good for you, because it’s — it’s good for me, it’s real good, fuck, I’ve never — I’ve never felt like this before, El, I — _oh_ — oh my god, you’re so big, oh my _god_ — I — can I fuck you next time? Because this feels amazing, so amazing, and I, I want you to feel amazing — I don’t know if I can be as good at it as you are, but —”

Quentin pauses to listen to the other side of the line. In the past whenever Eliot would touch himself while Quentin watched he would put on a show, fluttering eyelashes and long earthy groans, airy gasps of Quentin’s name. This is — not that. Eliot is making the kind of private undignified choking noises Quentin associates with pumping himself furiously in his bedroom at his mom’s place, face contorting unattractively, trying to stay silent and keeping an ear out for any signs of movement in the house. It is… the hottest fucking thing he has heard in his life. He squirms on the bed.

He says, “Do you remember what you would always say next?”

“I —” Eliot needs to take a moment to gather his senses. Serves him fucking right. “Yeah, I remember.”

“What was it,” Quentin says.

“I’d say —” Eliot is breathing hard. His hand must be moving fast and hard and ugly on his cock, everything so big and thick. “I’d say you’re gonna be great, babe. You’re gonna do so good.”

“And then I would be,” Quentin says. “Because —” He takes a moment to make sure he’s got it right. Eliot’s gotta be close, this thing is in the bag. He tries to sound awestruck and grateful when he says it. “Because you taught me, El. You showed me exactly how to fuck you like you wanted, and it felt so, so good. I don’t think I could have done it with anyone else. Only you, El. Only you.”

And he was right — Eliot comes with a loud wrenching _augh_. “Ha,” Quentin says, satisfied. “I win.”

“Jesus Christ,” Eliot says, gasping for air.

Quentin listens to him breathe for a few seconds, reveling in his victory. “Well, I’m gonna go now.”

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Eliot says again.

“Have a nice afternoon,” Quentin says.

But before he can hang up Eliot says, “Who knew…”

Quentin freezes, hand halfway to ending the call. _Just hang up_ , he tells himself. _Whatever he says next, you don’t need to hear it. It’s probably not even_ —

“Who knew,” Eliot says, “shy, quiet Quentin Coldwater had that in him?”

Quentin bites his lip. _Hang up_ , he says again in his head.

Eliot has recovered his equilibrium. “That was another one you always liked,” he says. “ _Who knew you had it in you?_ I am a good teacher, it’s true. But we went so much further than I ever expected. And you liked that, right? You liked being a surprise. You liked being fucking — _underestimated._ That’s embarrassing, too. But it’s true.”

Quentin tries to keep his breathing even. What Eliot’s saying is — it’s not — whatever, whatever, just —

“So who knew,” Eliot says, “Quentin Coldwater had that kind of mouth on him? Who ever would have thought that hiding under all those neuroses and all that shame and that terrible posture was so much fucking _filth?_ ”

Quentin shudders. Of its own accord his hand brings the phone back to his ear.

“You loved being a secret,” Eliot says. “A filthy, dirty secret. The perfect little cockslut, and only I knew. And you loved it when I told you what you were, because then you could feel like you were doing something right. And that’s why,” and there’s a knowingness creeping into his voice that Quentin loathes already, “you still haven’t touched yourself. Have you.”

Quentin clenches his jaw and doesn’t say anything.

Eliot sighs. “Just say it.”

Quentin tells himself: _Don’t say it. Just hang up the phone and then go jerk off to something normal like Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider or Zachary Quinto in anything or literally any person in literally any other context in the entire universe. You don’t need this._

His dick says: _hahahahahahahahaha_

“No,” he grits out. “I haven’t touched myself.”

“Good,” Eliot coos. Quentin’s hips jerk. “And why not?”

“Because…” Quentin shakes his head, exasperated. “Because you fucking know why not, asshole.”

“I do,” Eliot says. “But I like to hear it. If you say it, then maybe I’ll let you touch yourself.”

“Because…” Quentin closes his eyes, admitting defeat. “Because I’m good.” The words send a fresh wave of heat all the way down his body.

“ _How_ good?” Eliot says, because he is the worst and most evil person to ever walk the earth.

“I’m — I’m so good,” Quentin says roughly. “I’m so good, Eliot. I’m the best. Just like you said.”

“That’s right,” Eliot says, sounding pleased. “You are good. You’re the best. You can do what you want now.”

Quentin unzips his pants and starts jerking off at fucking warp speed, grabbing his dick with a loud low curse and fisting wildly and it takes him all of maybe thirty seconds to come because the entire goddamn time Eliot is still there in his ear whispering “You’re good, you’re good, Q, you’re so good.”

When he’s finished with what turns out to be of course an absolutely hatefully intense orgasm he stares at the ceiling, trying to catch his breath quietly enough that Eliot can’t hear what he’s fucking done to him. As soon as he thinks he can speak without giving himself away he says, “Okay, well, I’m gonna hang up now. And just to be clear, I _don’t_ have plans. I just don’t want to have this conversation anymore.”

“Because you hate me so much,” Eliot says.

“Yep,” Quentin agrees. “That’s pretty much why.” He ends the call and grabs a pillow and pushes it against his mouth and screams and screams and screams.

_Wichita, KS_

He’s under Thomas, 23, tall and dark and lanky (interests: indie rock, magical horticulture, Soderbergh), and Thomas is hot and into it and confident and good at kissing and it should be the simplest fucking thing in the world to have a good time with him but Quentin can’t stop thinking about someone else’s curly hair and long fingers and eyes fixing him in place, that way someone else had of fucking him with his gaze which drove him crazy because what, because he’s apparently fucking vain, what the fuck does Eliot know, he was just projecting, fifty years and all he could come up with was that the guy who only bought new clothes when his old ones were too stained or torn to wear in public and sometimes not even then was _vain_ , as if, smug idiot thinks he knows everything —

“Can you —” Quentin throws his hands palm-up on the bed. It’s the kind of thing it’s felt sort of impolite to introduce to someone in their first four hours of acquaintance unless they bring it up, which typically they don’t — surely the etiquette dictates that opening the can of worms that is one’s apparently bottomless appetite for mild to moderate physical domination is like, a second date topic at the least, and he’s purposely not having any of those — but it’s also one of the surest ways to send metaphorical novocaine straight into his brain and shut the damn thing off so he can fucking relax. “Can you hold me down? Is that, like —”

“Sure,” Thomas breathes.

He moves his hands onto Quentin’s hands, interlocking their fingers, and Quentin says “No — sorry, I mean that’s good too but — the wrists, if you could grab my wrists —” Thomas obliges, gently stretching thumb and forefinger across the underside of his wrists, and Quentin sighs, twists his hands on instinct —

Thomas backs off suddenly, startled, and Quentin clarifies, “No, that was good, that was good, I was just — getting into it, you know?” Thomas laughs, looking a little embarrassed, and Quentin wonders if he’s ever done this before, and if he should feel bad. He shouldn’t feel bad, right? Either Thomas figures out he’s into it or he figures out he isn’t, and, you know — either way, that’s data. Quentin is helping someone else along the quest of their self-knowledge. That’s — sure. Whatever.

Thomas replaces his loose grip and this time when Quentin twists he doesn’t move, and they resume with the kissing and the sucking and the nipping at each other’s skin, and while Thomas is using his mouth to do some very nice things to his shoulder Quentin says “You can go harder, you know, with your hands,” and Thomas tenses his grip almost imperceptibly, and Quentin says “Yeah like that, that’s great — or harder would be great, too, if —” and Thomas tightens the world’s slowest vise, and Quentin tries one more time, attempting to be encouraging, “That’s — that’s good, that’s really great, like you could even do it harder, actually, and that would be great —” And Thomas laughs like he’s trying to sound knowing and whispers, “You like that, huh?” rough in Quentin’s ear, but he doesn’t actually move his hands, which — see, _this_ is why it’s a second date thing. Probably later, not that he’ll ever find out. He sighs and relaxes and says “Yeah, I like that,” and thinks about Eliot pinning him down, hands unshakably strong, his own back arching desperately off the mattress, lips shut tight because Eliot had told him not to make a sound and promised he’d get so well taken care of if he was good.

_Southbound on I-35_

“Are oral fixations real,” Quentin says, “or is it one of those made-up ones like penis envy?”

From the driver’s seat Julia flicks her gaze over to him just long enough to linger pointedly on where he’s sucking the powdered sugar from a pack of gas-station donuts off his finger, which — hastily he pulls his finger from his mouth and opens the glove compartment for a napkin.

“I don’t know,” she says. “But you know who I bet would.”

“If you tell me to go to therapy,” Quentin warns, “I’m going to _Lady Bird_ myself out of this car.”

Julia projects an air of unimpressed judgment without saying a word. God, how does she do that? He wonders if it’s a teachable skill.

“I’m serious,” he says. “Just gonna — roll right out on the highway.”

“You need to go to therapy,” she says calmly.

“I’m.” He puts his hand on the door handle. “I’m doing it.”

“You need to go to therapy so, so bad.”

“It’s happening, Julia. And then — traffic’s gonna get all messed up, and you’re gonna feel — really guilty, and —”

“No one on earth has ever needed to go to therapy like you do,” she says. “My mother doesn’t need therapy like you do. _Your_ mother doesn’t need therapy like you. Henry Fogg is a fucking paragon of not needing therapy, compared to you.”

“It’s — I’m not bluffing.”

“Child stars who couldn’t get cast in serious roles when they stopped being cute need therapy less than you do. Women who have had sex with Justin Bieber on purpose need therapy less than you do. People with ‘comedian-slash-podcaster’ in their Twitter bio need therapy less than you do.”

“I mean it,” he says. “I’m — going.” He wills his hand to open the door. Picturing asphalt dragging the skin off his body at seventy miles an hour and his arm shattering in seven hundred pieces and then getting run over by a fucking Volvo. That would hurt, right? In his head it doesn’t hurt. The Volvo family would feel, like, totally guilty. Two little blonde kids in identical soccer uniforms, crying and scarred for life about the time they watched their dad commit manslaughter. He doesn’t know why they’re wearing soccer uniforms on the highway. Maybe they had a tournament. And they’re siblings but on the same team? They’re twins?

Julia doesn’t even take her eyes off the road.

“Ugh, _fine_ ,” he says finally, letting go of the door. It’s so stupid that he wants to die too much to actually do anything or want anything or think about his past or present or future for more than five minutes without wanting to down half a bottle of Everclear and/or set himself on fire, yet apparently not enough to win an argument. Like, you’d think he could at least harness it for something useful every now and then.

“I think oral fixation was also Freud,” Julia says. “So it’s probably discredited.”

“Whatever,” he says. “When are we stopping for lunch?”

_Oklahoma City, OK_

He has a zit on his left nostril, just where it meets the plane of his face. A zit on his nose, just off-center, a zit right beneath his mouth. A gigantic zit on his chin and two smaller ones just beneath it, a disgusting pink planet and its repulsive moons. A chain of zits across his forehead like some greasy archipelago. He imagines all the vileness inside of him percolating volcanically. Ready to fucking blow.

Quentin knows you’re not supposed to pop them but he can’t stop staring at the bulging white head on his chin, hurtful to poke at but making itself known in his awareness what seems like always. He brings his index fingers to it, one on either side, and pushes down, in, squeezing until it oozes into deflating itself. There’s a gross satisfaction in it but it’s not quite enough. He moves to the one on his nose, pressing through the pain until he’s rewarded with the miniscule white spurt. Side of his nose, this one more swollen than the rest and more painful but not quite ready it seems to give. He pushes and pushes but when something comes out it’s a drop of blood.

The rest are even less ripe for release, he can tell to look at them. He needs to cut his nails. He should bring his hands down to his sides and splash some water on his face and get back into bed with Jamaal, 27 (interests: poetry, tea, messenger bags yes i’m a hipster lol). He watches his fingers in the mirror moving around his face, digging at the skin like prospectors in a gold rush. Like somewhere here buried is the event that will mean they won’t have to do this anymore. Leaving half-moon creases in the flesh. Occasional red pricks where the pressure broke through to find nothing. Eventually he’s just attacking his face, watching in sick fascination as the oil rises out of the pores. It’s gross, it’s so gross, and what he’s doing is only going to make his skin worse, and he’s made himself sore so that it’s just pain with every new iteration but his hands keep moving and he can’t make them stop.

By the time he finally wrests himself away his phone says it’s nearly an hour since he went in and Jamaal is asleep. Quentin starts to get into bed but then his arms are putting his clothes back on and his feet are carrying him out of the room and down the hall and into the warm night air to call a cab back to the hotel. In the back of the car he realizes he left his belt on Jamaal’s floor, but lately he doesn’t really need it.

_Amarillo, TX_

He’s freshening up before heading out to meet Nadia, 24 (interests: open access magic, anarchism, Emma Goldman) when his eye catches on the cheap hotel toothbrush in the bathroom. On an impulse he doesn’t pause to articulate it he grabs it off the shelf, holds for a moment the thin plastic in his hands, and then in one quick rough motion snaps it in half.

One object, two pieces. The simplest possible mending there is, their first assignment in that unit and the first bit of homework he’d completed easily, so easily that he was startled to overhear in the dining hall classmates going over the tuts like it was something other people might need to work for and he’d started to think maybe he wasn’t the most singularly useless magician in history after all. There’s a one-handed spell that works for this, he can hold the pieces together and then the only magic will be stitching them back together, which is the magic he was born to do. It should be so fucking easy.

He can’t do it.

When Julia comes back she finds him sitting on the lid of the toilet, staring at the broken toothbrush in his hands. “Q, you okay?”

“I can’t fix it,” he says flatly. “I — I dropped a glass and I couldn’t, I couldn’t put the pieces back together, and I thought it was just a fluke, like maybe I was just tired, but I can’t — I’ve tried every spell I know, and I know pretty much all the spells, and it won’t — it won’t work, I can’t do it.”

“I’m sorry,” Julia says softly.

“I don’t get it,” he says. “I mean — this isn’t telekinesis, I’m not levitating or, or suspending, or — any of that. It shouldn’t —” He stops, making a fist around the toothbrush in frustration.

“I mean,” Julia says gently, so gently he wants to roll his eyes already, “the application is different but — mending spells draw on the same channel of physical magic as telekinesis. It’s all a form of moving matter through the world, just at a different level of precision and scale.”

Which Quentin obviously fucking knew, but it feels so much worse to hear her say it in her gentle voice. “Great. So now I can’t do my discipline — the kind of magic I’m allegedly best at — which, oh by the way, just so happens to be fucking _fixing things._ That’s not fucking loaded with ominous significance, or anything.” He slams the toothbrush on the side of the sink, harder than he means to.

“I’m sure you’ll get it back, Q,” Julia says. Swiftly she casts to bring the pieces back together and he feels the dark knife-twist of an old and familiar jealousy. How easy it always seemed for her, to just —

“Whatever,” he says, standing up. “Repair of Small Objects is a stupid discipline anyway. I’ve got to go meet someone.”

-

He stands Nadia up, though. He doesn’t feel like dealing with another magician tonight. Instead he winds up going home with a guy, medium height, sandy hair, Quentin doesn’t bother to learn his name. The guy buys him drinks and looks fine and kisses fine and moves fine and none of it is what Quentin wants but he doesn’t know what would be except crashing through glass with his entire body until he bled out and collapsed in a bed of glittering shards. Jagged red lines criss-crossing his body.

“You can just — you can go for it,” Quentin says when the guy is working him with his fingers, “I’m ready.”

The guy’s brows lift slightly. “Really?”

“Yeah, I —” Quentin resists the urge to roll his eyes, tries to summon up the will to be convincing. “I want it, I want you so bad, come on.” The words sound like they belong to someone else.

“Are you sure?” says the guy, the picture of the considerate partner, and Quentin snaps, “Do you want to fuck me or not?” That seems to take care of any lingering concerns. And the thing is Quentin was lying, because he’s not ready, but he was telling the truth, too, because the guy was being good and Quentin doesn’t want it to be good, tonight. He wants it to burn, he wants it to hurt, he wants something that will crowd everything else out of his body. Every other rotten thing. He wants to feel something as true and simple as pain, just for a moment, and then he wants it to be over.

_Lubbock, TX_

“So what are you wearing?”

They’ve run through the key points of the past week of Quentin’s sex life (girl who didn’t make, like, _any_ noise at all while they were fucking but who enthused afterwards over his skill, which, okay; guy who cried when he came but seemed fine with it; sweet Thomas in Wichita doing his best; he left out the guy in Amarillo except to say he’d gone home with someone who wasn’t a magician) and Quentin is on his back in a stiff hotel bed. He frowns. “Uh. Clothes?”

“Which clothes?” Eliot asks.

Why the fuck does he care? “Regular clothes?”

Eliot gives a tiny sigh. Undoubtedly pinching the bridge of his nose, forehead tilting down. “God, you’re so bad at this.”

“Bad at _what?_ ” Quentin asks. Belatedly his brain puts together the pieces. “Wait — are you trying to _phone sex_ me? What the honest to god fuck, Eliot.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Eliot says, “would that make it _weird?_ ”

“Well — yeah,” Quentin says. “Freak.”

“Yeah, I’d hate to ruin something as wholesome and completely normal as my ex-boyfriend calling me to tell me about fucking a Texan who wanted him wear a cowboy hat during sex.”

“I don’t think he grew up in Texas,” Quentin said. “Like I think he moved here on purpose because he was already like that and he thought that’s what Texas was. Honestly I feel like if I were from Texas I’d really resent the shit out of him for giving us a bad name. Who says I want to have phone sex with you?”

“Did you have some other pressing matter you were dying to discuss?” Eliot says.

“No,” Quentin says, “but still. Maybe I’m sick of talking to you.”

“So hang up.” There’s a brief silence in which Quentin imagines a shrug. “I figured if neither of us were going to hang up on another one of these godforsaken conversations, which it seemed we weren’t, we may as well have some fun with it. But if you don’t want to, then just get off the phone.”

“Maybe I will,” Quentin says, but he doesn’t. Eliot doesn’t say anything but Quentin knows he’s — smirking, just a little. How weirdly soft his eyes get when he does that. God, _what_ an asshole. He gives himself another thirty seconds to pretend he’s going to do anything other than exactly what he fucking knows he’s about to do. “Ugh, fine. I’m wearing — I don’t know, a shirt? Pants? Socks? I took my shoes off to lie down? Why is this important?”

“I’m just trying to get a picture,” Eliot says. “I’m a very visual person, you know that.” Quentin rolls his eyes. “So the pants I assume are jeans, one of those dark-wash pairs you’ve been into for a while.” Quentin makes a noise of assent. “What about the shirt? Can you describe the shirt?”

“I don’t know clothes words.”

“I’m not asking for like, cut and material. Can I get a color? Sleeve length? General fit?”

“It’s — black, long-sleeved. Probably nice, Julia picked it out. Kind of tight.” He shifts the position of his legs slightly. The shirt was one of their purchases at the shops in Back Bay, hundreds of miles and what feels like a lifetime away but was really only what, two months? Not even. When he bought it in Boston the shirt was kind of tight in what Julia assured him was a fashion way. It’s tighter than that now. “Does that help?”

“I can work with that,” Eliot says. “You’re in a hotel?”

“Yeah,” Quentin says. “A cheap one. They kind of all look the same after a while.”

“Okay,” Eliot says. “So you’re in the hotel room, and the door opens. I come in.”

“See,” Quentin complains, “but if you showed up at my hotel room the first thing I would do is punch you in the face. How am I supposed to suspend disbelief for this?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Eliot says. “But if you don’t, then you can’t have phone sex, so.”

Quentin tries for a moment to convince himself to just end the goddamn call. Admittedly he doesn’t try that hard. “Alright, so you’re here, and I’m here, and for some reason I’m not hitting you or kicking you out, so — what, we just start making out?” The image in his head as he talks looks more like dolls being mashed against each other than human sexual activity.

“Something like that,” Eliot says. “If that’s where you want to begin. We’re standing just inside the doorway, and I lean down and kiss you. Not too fast yet.”

Quentin feels like he’s either way too drunk or not nearly drunk enough for this. “This is very PG-13 phone sex.”

“You know I like a narrative arc,” Eliot says, irritatingly unbothered. “And don’t pretend like you hate kissing so much. You know I’m like, _really_ good at it. I always liked the way you would just kind of melt without even taking your clothes off.” Eliot has started to drop his voice low. Quentin hates that he’s right. He angles his head so he’s looking at the door and pictures their silent doppelgangers acting out the scene: Eliot probably in like a vest that cost more than his laptop, tall, so tall, stooped over Quentin going boneless against him. He does remember: that wet warmth on his mouth spreading something loose and hungry down his back, through his arms, into every muscle. “One hand at the back of your neck, the other all over your back, your chest.” His stupidly long fingers and the shape of those knuckles. Quentin can almost feel their ghost at the top of his back, the exposed skin there. “Walking you against the wall, maybe a little too fast. I’m feeling impatient. Your shoulder bumps into it pretty hard, but you like that, right?”

Quentin feels a swift featherstroke of desire in the pit of his stomach: Eliot stepping his long legs forward, the _thunk_ of his own body caught in his whims. “Yeah,” he admits. “Yeah, I — because you’re not being careful, and you’re —” He could be so careful. Quentin shuts his mouth. He tries to think of what Eliot’s into, about this. “You like getting me out of breath. Forgetting to be quiet. Making me lose it, before we even get started. How fucking good you think you must be, if I want it so bad.”

“Yeah,” Eliot says, “yeah, I do. See? The set-up counts. So now I reach down to take off your shirt.”

Quentin squirms, face flushing uncomfortably hot through his ears. “I don’t know if you want to do that.”

“Ooh,” Eliot says, clearly expecting some fun sexy turn of events, “why not?”

He bites the inside of his cheek. “Because I’ve gained like ten pounds.”

“Oh,” Eliot says, in his normal voice. “I don’t care about that. Unless — is this some kind of humiliation thing? Because um, I think I could get that going for you if that’s what you want, but we’d need to talk through it first or I’d feel weird.”

Quentin rolls his eyes. “It’s not a kink, I really have gained ten pounds. We’ve been driving in the car, like, constantly,” he adds by way of explanation. “They say sitting is the new smoking.”

“Uh huh.”

Quentin fidgets with the edge of his too-tight shirt, debating how honest to be. “Also I’m on a one-man quest to stuff my face with every processed carbohydrate in America. Did you know you can deep fry Oreos?”

“I’m from Indiana, Quentin. I am unfortunately intimately acquainted with the myriad perversions towards which my countrymen have put cooking oil.”

“They’re pretty good if you ignore how completely disgusting they are.”

“Eugh.”

“Anyway so I know we always used to joke about me having an oral fixation because of how much I love giving head, but I really think I might be orally fixated. Julia says oral fixation isn’t a real thing but, I don’t know, man. I can’t go like two hours without putting something in my mouth.” He has no idea why he’s fucking telling Eliot any of this like he’s under the spiritual magnetism of a confessional booth, which makes no sense because he’s not even Catholic. It feels actually not unlike the trance-like state in which he had worked his way through a box of Cheez-Its on the drive down. “Honestly I would smoke more just to stop fucking eating but I feel bad doing it too much if Julia’s going to be around since she quit. Which you guys did together, so. When you think about it, this is kind of your fault.”

“Well. That doesn’t sound super emotionally or physically healthy, but.” Eliot sounds weird. “I don’t care that you gained ten pounds.”

“I haven’t checked,” Quentin says. “I’m estimating.”

“Okay,” Eliot says, still in that weird voice. Quiet and earnest and — bruised, almost. “Did you think I cared about that?”

“I don’t know,” Quentin says. “Maybe?”

“Why would you think that I cared about that?”

Eliot seems so genuinely flummoxed by this fully idiotic question that Quentin is torn between laughing and wanting to scream. “Gee, I don’t know, Eliot. Maybe because you’re an astronomically vain person who loves to make fun of my shoes. Maybe I kind of just assumed. Extrapolated from the available data.”

“That’s totally different,” Eliot protests.

“How is it different?” Quentin demands. “I don’t see the difference.”

“I know you don’t see the difference,” Eliot says. “If you could see the difference you would buy better shoes.”

“That makes zero sense.”

“Does it bother you when I make fun of your shoes?” Eliot sounds almost upset when he says this, like he’s never in his life considered that anyone might have an issue with being told their feet look like they’re going as a widowed antiques dealer for Halloween. Which he probably hasn’t. Dumbass.

“Not really,” Quentin says. “It used to but eventually I figured out you didn’t actually care.”

“I can stop,” Eliot says. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t very nice of me.”

He’s so fucking sincere that Quentin does laugh. “Yeah, that’s the worst thing you’ve ever done to me. Make fun of my shoes.”

“Quentin…”

He can’t stop laughing, actually, because — like, _what_? “That’s actually why I’m driving across the country vacuuming up every fucking potato chip between New York and California with my mouth. Because one time you told me my shoes made me look like an art history major with a coke problem. It really traumatized me for life.”

“Okay, well.” Eliot’s pulling himself back together. That brief press of his eyes closing. “I don’t think I would have said it like that, because art history major with a coke problem is redundant. But whatever I said, I was right.”

“I’m breaking out like crazy, too,” Quentin says, because — why? Why can’t he just shut his stupid mouth? “My face is a mess.”

“So I’ve got you pressed against the wall,” Eliot says, “and I take off your shirt. Because I don’t care about your zits, or that you’ve gained ten pounds.”

“Maybe more.”

“I don’t care,” Eliot says, satisfyingly annoyed, “that you’ve gained somewhere between five and fifty pounds.” He pauses and then adds, almost as if to himself, “ _You_ obviously feel weird about it, though.”

“In the fantasy,” Quentin asks, “or in real life?”

“I meant real life,” Eliot says. “But you didn’t have to tell me about it, so I think in the fantasy too.”

“Why would I fantasize about that,” Quentin says, scowling. “I told you this isn’t a humiliation thing.”

“No, it’s not, is it?” Eliot muses. “You can do that all on your own. You’ve probably already been like mentally reliving your late night pizza massacres.”

Feeling betrayed Quentin sputters, “Oh what the _hell_ , Eliot —”

“Sorry — sorry, that wasn’t supposed to be part of the sex stuff, just — thinking out loud from unfortunate experience.” Quentin relaxes his shoulders, mollified. “So — what _do_ you want me to do?”

“Swan dive off a cliff?” Quentin says. “Impale yourself on a rake? Not take off my fucking shirt?”

“But why not?” Eliot says.

“I already _told_ you —”

“No, yeah, but like — like what do you think is going to happen? When I go for your shirt, what’s going through your head? I’m like, really trying to understand.”

Quentin balls up his free hand into a fist. “It’s not rocket science.” Eliot just — waits. Fuck him. Quentin looks again at the doorway, watching their other selves in his mind: Eliot’s hands sure and eager at his waist, himself flinching away with his whole body. “I’m — kind of fucked up about it, if you have to fucking know! Like I’m —” He tries to name the sick heat crossing his skin in waves. “Ashamed?” He considers this. “That feels kind of strong, honestly. It’s ten pounds, not like, half a million in gambling debts. But — embarrassed, or — or whatever, this is stupid. Stupid, I feel fucking stupid, and I don’t want to talk about it, and I don’t want you to fucking look at me, because then you’re going to like, leave, or shit, not be able to get it up and _then_ leave.” Which even Quentin can see is like, hilariously crazy because on the list of reasons he’s given Eliot Waugh not to sleep with him ever again, ten pounds doesn’t even crack the top hundred. “Or _worse_ , you’re going to look at me like you feel fucking _sorry_ for me, and you’re going to give me some bullshit speech about, like, _oh, honey, you’re gorgeous just the way you are_ , like I’m a teenage gymnast in a Lifetime movie about bulimia.”

Eliot says, “Hmmmm.”

“See,” Quentin says, “phone sex was a terrible idea.”

“Close your eyes.”

“How is that going to —”

Eliot makes his voice mean and hard and uncompromising to say “Shut up and close your _fucking_ eyes, Quentin,” and Quentin —

— shudders all through his chest and down into his hips and feels his dick stirring to attention and —

— closes his eyes. “Okay,” he breathes. “They’re closed.”

“Now stay there for a minute,” Eliot says, and Quentin can’t pull apart how much he’s talking to his real self and how much to his fantasy self, blushing and gritting his teeth against the wall — “and just — just let me. You don’t have to do anything, you don’t have to say anything, you don’t even have to see it happening. Just stay there and let me take off your goddamn shirt. Okay?”

Quentin nods before remembering Eliot can’t see. “Okay.”

“Okay.” There’s a long pause and Quentin fills it: Eliot’s hands so solid in their motion lifting up the shirt, guiding his arms up just long enough to slide the sleeves all the way off past his hands. The world dark and his skin sensitive and bare in the air. He swallows; folds his arms across his covered chest against the gaze that isn’t even in the room.

“How’s that?”

“It’s —” Quentin can’t find the words for it. He feels more naked than he’s ever been. His eyes are closed and in his head Eliot is eyeing him up and down, his hunched-over body, taking in every change his arms can’t hide and it’s — awful, right? It’s exactly what he didn’t want except — embarrassment is burning through him so severe that he’s starting to wonder if maybe this _is_ a humiliation thing — except he’s spent so much of his stupid life being embarrassed and it’s not _exactly_ like — “I don’t — uh, I don’t know how it is.”

“Are you crossing your arms?” Eliot says. “Trying to keep me out?”

“How the fuck did you know that?” Quentin says, startled.

“I meant in the fantasy,” Eliot says, “but — damn, I’m good. None of that, though. I want to see what I came for.”

Quentin doesn’t say anything or move. He lies there with his arms crossed, gritting his teeth, trying to figure out if whatever is going on in his pants is the beginnings of an erection.

“Fine,” Eliot says. “If you’re not going to listen when I ask nicely —” And his voice again, rough and commanding, that voice so far from anything Eliot has ever said in his actual life but which Quentin gets to hear — got to hear — because it makes — it made, it used to make him soften for anything, he’d love doing anything that voice told him to do and it — just for now it still — 

Eliot says “Give me your wrists” in that voice and Quentin —

— opens up. Phone on the bed next to his ear, hands floating to rest up above him where they belong.

“I was trying to be gentle,” Eliot says, and he is and isn’t speaking gently, that exact paper-thin edge where he’s both so much it always — it used to — Quentin is definitely hard now, mouth fallen open — “But you didn’t want that. So now I’ve got you fucking pinned, and I’m _not_ letting you go.” A pained little moan escapes Quentin’s throat — Eliot’s hands holding him there no matter how he moves, his impossibly long body close but untouchable, his eyes tracing Quentin’s neck, shoulders, his chest, the unfamiliar softness at his stomach.... “And I’m going to look at you as long as I want.”

“But why?” Quentin blurts out, too infuriatingly turned on to keep it back. “Why are you — I don’t —”

“Because you’re fucking _hot_ , Quentin,” Eliot says, exasperated. “If you think I’m rolling my eyes, you’re right. Because you’re so hot that it’s literally stupid anyone has ever had to explain this to you. You’re so hot it’s aggravating, because you can just walk around in your ancient shoes without even fucking trying and still be someone people would walk over broken glass to sleep with. Yes, _people_ , plural, _no_ not just me, _no_ this is not about your winning personality or your inner fucking beauty because you’ve been a real shithead lately and I’ve _still_ got a hard-on you could hammer nails with thinking about just _looking_ at your fucking body. _God_.” Eliot’s completely dropped the various sex voices and just sounds actually pissed off about how dumb he thinks Quentin is being, which makes it — so much _hotter?_ What the — _fuck_ is going _on_ with his _dick?_ “That guy who took you home last night, he didn’t give a shit about who you are as a human being. He saw someone hot and he wanted to put his mouth on your mouth and his dick in your ass from sheer animal instinct. It’s reptile brain shit, what you do to people. What your body does to people.”

“I —” Quentin manages, “Eliot, can I, am I allowed to be jerking off this time? Because —”

“Yeah, go ahead.” Quentin unzips his jeans and grips himself, hard. Eliot laughs, kind of meanly, which — fuck fuck fuck fuck _fuck_. “You like that? You like hearing about how idiotically, infuriatingly hot you are? How it drove me nuts that for decades in fucking Fillory I couldn’t just take you out somewhere to revel in the way people checked you out, knowing that I was the one seeing you naked that night? How you make people jealous?”

“I — yeah, I —” Quentin gasps. “I — do, what the — _fuck_ , Eliot, this is _so_ —”

“So what?” Eliot says, rough again but now like he’s working himself too on the other end.

“So — stupid, and so fucking — weird, I mean I don’t — I want — it’s so —” He can’t stop picturing it, him and Eliot somewhere dark, Eliot leaning in to whisper _Don’t look now but there’s another one_ , following the direction of his gaze to see someone — _watching_ him, someone he didn’t even know, which is — not —

“So _vain,_ ” Eliot says, “I fucking told you, you can hate it all you want” — Quentin’s hips jerk upwards with a guilty ache — “but you’re as vain as anyone —”

“You like that, right?” Quentin shoots back, trying to grab for some kind of — leverage or counterweight or — “You always love being fucking right.”

“I do,” Eliot says with a laugh.

“And you love — I bet you’re loving this, fucking — me with my fucking low self-esteem and you get to swoop in and save the day,” he goes on, “your fucking white knight fantasies — getting off on being the one who can make me forget for like five seconds that I hate myself —”

“Regrettably,” Eliot says, strained, “yes, I do get off on — making you feel better about yourself — I fucking do, Q —”

“You’re good at it,” Quentin groans, and he doesn’t know if it’s an attack or a confession. “I hate that you’re good at it but you are.”

Needy, needy now, Eliot says, “Yeah?”

“Yeah I — I think I’ve always kind of hated it, even when — but I couldn’t — I couldn’t make it untrue, I —” How Eliot would say what he didn’t want to want to hear over and over until for a few minutes near the end it felt real, _you’re so good, you’re so hot, you’re so_ —

“Fuck,” Eliot breathes, “open — are your eyes still closed?”

“Yeah,” Quentin says, “this whole time —”

“Good, that’s good —” Quentin spits _fuck_ as the muscles along his inner thighs tighten. “But now — now you’re going to open them and you’re going to see me and I’m not, I’m not going to be leaving or grossed out or sorry or any of that shit, I’m going to be looking at you — fuck, Q, the way I always do — you know the way?”

“Yeah,” Quentin says, nodding, “yeah, I know —”

“Open your eyes,” Eliot says.

Quentin opens his eyes: the empty room, the space they would be in, Eliot’s face — “You’re looking at me — _nngh_ — Jesus, like — like you want to fuck me —”

“That’s right,” Eliot says, “that’s right — I want to fuck you, I want to fuck you goddamn senseless and then I want to do it again, do you know _why?_ ”

“Because —” Quentin bites his lip, feeling another surge of heat along his face somewhere between shame and arousal, intensifying as he speaks, the words embarrassing and intoxicating in his mouth. “Because I’m — I’m hot, because you want me, because I fuck so dirty, because I’m — I’m —”

“What are you?” Eliot says. “Come on, there’s one you’re missing — you’ve heard me say it so many times —”

“I’m —” His throat closes on the word, on this one word, so close he can almost feel it on his tongue. “I — can you say it, I can’t, I want to hear you —”

“Your fucking masculinity thing again,” Eliot says. “All those things you think you’re not supposed to want —”

He’s leaking on his belly, dick red and achingly hard, wrist straining with the effort. “El _please_ —”

“I want to fuck you,” Eliot says and it’s like he’s there, body vibrating with desire, “— _god_ I want to fuck you — because I fucking love pretty things. And you’re pretty, Q.” Jesus, _Jesus_ , fucking _fuck_ — “You’re so fucking pretty. You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Quentin comes all over himself wordless, brutal, long; on the other end he can hear Eliot’s “Oh _shit_ ” as the sounds Quentin’s making set him off. For a long moment he lies there sticky with himself, listening to his breath in the room and Eliot’s breath on the line.

“So,” Eliot says once he’s gathered his senses. “Was there anything else you wanted to talk about today?”

“Fuck you,” Quentin says, and hangs up.

He doesn’t bother to clean himself up with magic. Instead he strips and gets into the shower, turning the knob as hot as it can go, like if he can stand it long enough it’ll wash away everything he can’t make his body forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content notes:** In the second scene taking place in Amarillo (“He stands Nadia up…”), Quentin purposely rushes sex to hurt himself. In the conversation taking place in Lubbock, there are some negative feelings about weight gain that go to some frankly weird places and are not and will not ever be resolved in like a #bopo kinda way.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to give a blanket heads-up that, from my own perspective, this entire chapter forms the most difficult-to-read stretch of this story; everything that has been fucked up is still fucked up but more so. While it remains the case as I said at the start that all the sex that happens in this story is considered by everyone involved to be consensual, this chapter does have some notes for what I'll describe as content adjacent to questions of consent that you can read by scrolling to the end if that's something you prefer to learn about in advance; I would describe them as a little more spoiler-y than previous notes have been, which is information I give just to help people make the decision that will help them meet their own preferred degree of getting upset by fictional events. As always, you can also pop by on [Tumblr](http://prettyboysdontlookatexplosions.tumblr.com) to ask for more specifics than I give here.

_Roswell, NM_

He’s started having these moments — this thing where suddenly the world will seem to halt, for a few seconds, everything on pause so that the cosmic panopticon can stare right at him, and he’ll hear almost like a real voice outside his body: _What the fuck are you doing?_ Usually the voice sounds like Julia, concerned and slightly annoyed; occasionally it’s Alice, incredulous and judgmental, or Margo, bewildered and incensed. Heinously and therefore predictably sometimes it’s Eliot, worried and confused. The voice and the sensation of suspended animation, just for a moment — just long enough to hear that one question, always the same.

It happens again when they’re in New Mexico. Quentin had met up with Sofia, 22 (interests: magic, realism, magical realism), arriving buzzed or slightly more than that at the magician-run bar she’d suggested; laughed self-deprecatingly when she called him _like, kind of a real life superhero, minus the fascism_ ; pulled up some half-remembered lecture from his twentieth century Latin American Lit class to talk with her about Borges; eaten her out against the back of the door of her bedroom; fucked her from behind some while later, appreciating the view of her ass and how loud she cried out with every thrust. He knows how to do this now; the night had hit all the right notes.

Except then she’d fallen asleep and he’d watched her pretty face just barely visible with the light from her window, and he’d noticed the window had no curtains or blinds, just dozens of beaded strings, brightly colored like her sheets and her blanket, like the cushions on the wicker chair at the desk on the other side of them room, like the frames around little mirrors and paintings and photographs of people she knew; all these selections that showed this was a place where someone lived, where someone had made a home; and he had thought inexorably of the brightly colored pebbles Eliot had started setting in carefully chosen positions around the house in the woods after a few weeks, the flowers he would put in the window, _If we’re going to be here for a while we may as well make it somewhere we don’t hate walking into at the end of the day_ , and of Eliot’s room in the cottage before that, every shade and ornament a piece of Eliot the way Quentin’s posters and messily arranged childhood knickknacks had never been, and just — he just couldn’t be there. He didn’t belong in someone’s _home_ , and he couldn’t go back to the hotel, still drunk enough that he might fuck up a silencing charm and wake Julia, sleeping contentedly alone, lifting her eye mask and squinting as he stumbled into bed, her groggy voice saying _Q? Q, what’s —?_ He couldn’t fall asleep here, next to someone ordinary and sweet who looked at him and saw the person he had let her think he was, and he couldn’t fall asleep there, alone with Julia in the other bed, with her unbroken magic and her easy smile and her patient concern, so he left and he thought at first he’d go back to the bar Sofia liked except he didn’t want to have that conversation again, he didn’t want to go home with that awe in someone’s eyes, so he pulled out his phone for a quick search and found a regular bar in walking distance and headed out into the hot night, and on his way he’d passed a pharmacy and he’d remembered with a start that he’d used the lone condom he continued to carry around as a habit back in Amarillo, and if his plan was to fuck someone who couldn’t run protection spells he should restock.

So now he’s here, under the drugstore fluorescents at two in the morning, rhythmically lifting fistfuls of Chex Mix out of the bag he hasn’t paid for yet and into his mouth, staring at a wall of condoms with their dark boxes and bizarrely aggressive names, trying to remember what brand or material or style or _whatever_ he had used before Brakebills, or if he’d even had enough sex then to have a preference, when it happens again: the edges of everything very still and the ghastly white lights somehow even brighter and somewhere a voice saying like a message from the fabric of the universe itself, _Quentin, what the fuck are you doing?_ He can’t place the voice this time. It’s not Julia or Eliot — too angry for that — or any of the others; it doesn’t sound like someone he’s lately disappointed. It sounds like someone who’s been fed up with him for years, maybe more. Someone long since ready to give up on him, who can’t believe he’s stuck around this long just to keep fucking up this bad. Someone pissed off and not at all appeased when he thinks the answer, which is the same answer it always is: _I don’t know_.

Julia had a friend who got pregnant once using Trojans. He grabs the first brand he sees that aren’t those, a basic line, latex, lubricated, no ribbing or any of that heating shit, figuring normal is the default when in doubt. When he steps out of the air conditioning through the sliding doors back into the warmth of the night air he belatedly recognizes the voice — it was him, or it was the not-him. Quentin Coldwater, the guy who died.

-

He wakes up with the dawn and tries to ignore his head and his stomach and his arid mouth long enough to get dressed and leave before the woman in bed with him wakes up. He doesn’t worry about waking her up; they were both pretty trashed by the time they made it here last night. His memory offers up snatches of sloppy, uncoordinated sex. He doesn’t remember her name.

On the sidewalk walking away from her house he pulls out his phone to call a car or figure out the best way to get to the hotel and he finds that he texted Alice again: 4:12 a.m. New Mexico time, _Do you think I’m a sociopath?_ Alice has already replied: _I think calling yourself a sociopath is a great way to let yourself off the hook_. He almost sends back _Not as good as you’d hope_ , but he thinks better of it just in time.

_Northbound on US-285_

“Is there anything you want to do in Santa Fe?”

Quentin doesn’t know why Julia is still asking him these questions. Maybe it makes her feel better to pretend that someday he might have an actual answer. “Get lunch? Find a decent bar? Or else I was thinking I could walk into traffic. Maybe take a nap on some train tracks. Buy a scarf to hang myself with. I died so messily last time; this time I’d like to go out in style.”

Julia doesn’t say anything long enough that he glances over at the driver’s seat to see if she’s heard him. Her knuckles are white on the steering wheel, mouth in a tense line. She keeps her eyes straight forward when she says, firm and slow, “I _really_ don’t like it when you do that.”

Quentin shifts in his seat. They’ve been driving for at least an hour and his legs are starting to cramp. “Sorry my coping mechanism is so fucking annoying to you.”

“Is that what that is?” Julia says. “Really?”

Quentin shrugs. “What else would it be.”

Julia shakes her head minutely, but all she says is, “I guess I don’t know.”

“That’s right,” he says. “You don’t.” He lights a cigarette and rolls the window down, watching the smoke disappear into the desert. Nothing vanishing into nothing, all the way out to the horizon.

_Santa Fe, NM_

The hedges they unmark tell them about a party happening that night in some warehouse at the edge of the city. Julia obviously thinks it’s a terrible idea for him to go but equally obviously isn’t going to leave him to his own devices. He’s not sure which of those is more irritating.

At the warehouse, crowded and sweaty and lit up in purples and blues, all kinds of sparkler spells going fucking nuts along the walls, Quentin can’t remember why he wanted to come. He thinks he might just be too sober for the scene, but he keeps drinking and that doesn’t fix anything. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone or touch anyone and there are too many bodies and he’s remembering Bacchus’s party a lifetime ago at the start of the quest and he doesn’t want —

— _Q, you don’t need to —_

_—Stop, El, just — listen, okay, because it’s not, it’s not about what you think it’s about, it’s — yes, I was a fucking wreck when Arielle died. And yes, you were there for me, and for Teddy, and I think — I honestly think I’d be dead without you. So, yeah, I do kind of feel like I owe you everything, but — we can have that conversation later, because this — this is not something I feel like I owe you._

_And there was so much more he should have said tangling itself in his throat but maybe it didn’t matter because already Eliot’s face was softening against his own fear, and already his eyes were brightening with that swell of feeling like the sun rising, and he wasn’t ready yet to believe it but Quentin thought he might be able to —_

— to remember that —

_—This is not what we agreed on._

_—I didn’t actually agree on anything, but —_

Some girl gives him something to dissolve on his tongue; some guy gives him something to knock back. He has a bag of pills in his hands he doesn’t remember acquiring and he takes one or maybe two for good measure. He doesn’t want to be here still but he doesn’t want to not be here, either; he’s not sure he is here, fully. His body is here, but he’s somewhere else. Somewhere soft and still. His body is on its knees in a bathroom stall, closing his eyes around the feel of someone’s cock sliding into his mouth while the toilet flushes in the stall next to them, and he’s watching it happen, wondering for just a second _What the fuck are you doing?_ but not bothering to answer because it’s not like he has anywhere better to be.

_Taos, NM_

While they’re eating breakfast at some place with a deli counter and a few two-person tables before getting onto the godforsaken highway Julia asks, “What would happen if I stopped curing your hangovers?”

Quentin sips his coffee. “Is this an intervention?” He doesn’t want to make it a thing but he wants her to know that he will if the answer is yes.

“No,” she says, “just… a question.”

“Realistically?” Quentin takes a too-large bite of his sandwich, lets the silence linger as he chews, swallows, drinks some water. “I would spend a lot more time throwing up in the car while too out of it to work a decent dematerialization spell. So if that’s what you want to deal with, then be my guest.”

Julia sighs.

_Northbound on US-285_

“We’re in the car,” Quentin says when Eliot picks up, “so no phone sex today.”

“Oh what the fuck,” Julia says, and he turns his head to her and says, “Relax, I said we’re _not_ doing it. Out of, like, respect for you.”

“Hi, Julia,” Eliot says pleasantly. “I actually can’t really talk today anyway, I got roped into doing some favor for Twenty-Three. He’s supposed to be meeting me in a few minutes.”

“Eliot says hi,” Quentin tells her.

“Tell him I say hi,” Julia says, “and I’m sorry.”

“Julia says hi back,” Quentin says, “and that she’s sorry. I guess on my account, which, you know. Fair,” he concedes, which he thinks is pretty generous. “So how was therapy?”

Julia says, “What the _fuck_.”

“Oh, you know,” Eliot says. “Some small talk, cried about my childhood a bit, talked about what’s going on. Nothing too exciting. Which was kind of good, I think. Sometimes I need a breather week.”

“Did you talk about me?”

“That’s confidential.”

“That’s a yes,” Quentin says. He takes a sip of his beer. The cooling spell slipped somewhere along the road, so he should finish it soon. He pictures Eliot’s therapist, who in his head is an elderly white woman with curly gray hair and half-moon glasses, sitting in a room with a bunch of vaguely yonic watercolor paintings of flowers on the walls, saying kindly: _So this ex-boyfriend of yours, is he still a fucking lunatic? Why do you keep picking up his calls?_ Eliot saying, _Well when I was eight years old I wanted to take ice skating lessons, but my mother said..._

“Where are you driving to?”

“Pueblo, I think?” He looks at Julia, who nods. She looks like she’s being very careful to keep her eyes on the road. “Do you want to hear about who I’ve had sex with this week?”

“ _What_ ,” Julia says, “the _fuck_.”

“It’s not — he asks, okay?” Quentin says defensively. “I didn’t just, like — honestly I think he kind of gets off on it, it’s super weird.”

Eliot says, “That’s not quite how...”

“Yes or no, Eliot?”

“Sure,” Eliot says, with a little sigh. “Why not.”

Quentin considers the highlights. “I hooked up with this non-magic girl who told me she really wanted to do anal because she said her bag got stolen last month so she had to miss a bunch of days of birth control and she apparently has some like phobia about getting pregnant, and she was like, visibly surprised that I didn’t take that as a cue to just shove it in there, which like. What are straight guys doing? I know I was kind of a sexual idiot for a long time but I really think I didn’t need to start having sex with dudes to use some, like, basic common sense.”

“Bar is on the ground,” Julia mutters, “I told you,” at the same time that Eliot says, “I’ve been trying to tell you this for years and years.”

“So that was memorable,” Quentin says.

“Was the sex good?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he says. “I mean I came, so.”

Eliot drops his voice low and husky. “Was her ass better than mine?”

“Eliot,” Quentin protests, “I told you we can’t —”

“Oops, Penny’s here, gotta go, bye!” And then he fucking — hangs up. Honestly, the nerve of some people.

There’s a long silence in the car. Julia says, “So that’s how you’ve been spending your Friday afternoons, huh?”

Quentin shrugs. “I guess. Sometimes it gets a lot more detailed.”

They pass a sign letting them know they’re approaching city limits.

“I’m gonna turn on the radio,” Quentin says, and Julia says, “Yeah. Do that.” 

_Northbound on I-25_

Julia says, “Have you started thinking about what you want to do when we’re done?”

Quentin says, “Go to the top of the Empire State Building and jump.”

Her mouth purses, but all she says is, “I’m serious.”

“Who says I’m not?” Outside the window the splashes of green have begun popping back into the view. Like they’ve managed to drive right through a seasonal shift. It’s already June; New York by now is thick with green on sidewalk trees and parks, cultivated summer flowers opening in vivid starbursts. He tries to picture himself there — not even at the penthouse, just walking down Broadway from 116th, yellow umbrellas above hot dog trucks and the huge stone buildings of the campus, pausing on the island in the middle of the street to wait for the crosswalk, eyeing the tulips in their reds and yellows. No, tulips are earlier, aren’t they? Spring; he remembers them in the background of that one term paper on Ashbery, the one that made his professor promise to write a recommendation if he ever applied to grad school. They’ve missed the tulips. “I guess I haven’t thought about it.”

He waits for her to say _You could start by going to therapy_ , in which case it’ll be a whole thing, or to offer up some ideas he can shoot down because he’ll never do them, or to suggest that when they wrap up with the ritual in Denver they check in to the hotel and start brainstorming lists of potential paths, pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses, starting points. Her neat narrow handwriting on blue-lined paper, her favorite ballpoint pen. College apps all over again.

But Julia just nods like she’s filing away some information he’s given her. Quentin feels his teeth grinding, his legs suddenly restless, annoyed and feeling stupid about it. He can’t tell if he’s mad at the Julia in the car who didn’t offer to help him, or the Julia in his head who did. He rolls down the window and lights a cigarette.

_Denver, CO_

Hands on his back; lips on his lips; teeth at the crook of his shoulder. Shoulders under his palm, slim and strong; that pressure all along his front, body on a body telling his body what’s coming next. Quentin can feel the beginnings of the guy’s hard-on against his own, his hips starting to grind into that warmth, the motion proof of what Quentin has for him, what he thinks Quentin can give. He has nice hands. Quentin is breathing too hard to think.

“Hey —” Laughing a little, why do people do that? Why can’t they just stop acting like this is anything other than what it is? Because now Quentin has to smile back, match him in that space. “You wanna get out of here, uh — sorry, what was your name?”

“It’s Brian,” Quentin says, because — because he doesn’t want to be Quentin tonight. He doesn’t want to wear that story, weighing him down like chains underwater, even in his own mind. He wants — whatever, it’s just a fucking hook-up, it doesn’t matter. “Yeah, where do you live?”

-

Juila picks him up in the morning from a coffee shop he’s been at since they opened, caffeinating himself into a heart attack. “Can you please just send me a text next time if you’re going to disappear all night?” she says when he gets into the car.

Quentin closes the door more forcefully than he needs to. “Sorry I wasn’t home for supper, Mom. I guess I got confused and thought I was a fucking adult.”

“Yeah,” Julia says, “you’re being very adult about this.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He angles himself toward her, coiled and ready.

“Forget it,” she says. Half of him wants to press her, like pressing at a blister till it oozes pus all over the skin, but the other half doesn’t have the energy. “Kady’s brew is in the glove compartment.”

“How do you know I want it?” he asks, furious even though the answer is that she has eyes. “What if I’m feeling great this morning? What if I slept super well and am completely fucking hydrated?”

“Do what you want,” Julia says, “but if you throw up in the car I’m not cleaning it up.”

Quentin could keep it going, but it doesn’t feel worth it, suddenly. Without looking at her he opens the glove compartment and takes the vial out.

_Aspen, CO_

“Do you want to get out of here,” says a tall narrow blonde, and Quentin says, “Yeah, let me just text my friend — sorry, she’s totally fucking neurotic about this shit.” He texts Julia: _Sorry, Mom, I’ll be missing curfew again tonight. Say hi to the bridge club for me!_

Straddling the blonde on her bed, having managed with only minimal fumbling to have unclasped her lacy pink bra, he sits up to take his shirt off and she spreads her fingers on his chest, drags her long nails pleasantly down his sides. “God,” she says, voice hushed and eager, “you’re so fucking hot” — he shuts his eyes — “I’m so —”

“Yeah, uh,” he says, looking into her pointed face, his hands splayed just above her breasts, “what if we just — don’t talk, tonight? Like, at all?”

She raises her eyebrows, smiles like he’s offering enticing mischief. “Oooh, kinky.”

“Sure,” he nods, “yeah, just — you know, tell me if I’m doing anything wrong, obviously, but otherwise, we can just —”

She mimes zipping her lip, sealing the gesture with a wink, and he bends down to kiss her, relieved.

_Grand Junction, CO_

“I thought about you while I was fucking someone else last night.”

“Fucking hell,” Eliot says. “I guess we’re not bothering with the pleasantries today.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Quentin says, “and I didn’t want to. He didn’t look like you at all. He was like, my height, blonde, some kind of jock. His walls were like, all lacrosse shit. He was super hot, honestly. The kind of guy I never thought I would have had a chance with. And he was into it, you know? Good with his mouth, good with his dick. But I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

Eliot seems to be searching for a response. The way his face is always so many faces. “That’s… flattering.”

“I couldn’t stop remembering,” Quentin says, “the first time we fucked after my wife died.”

“Jesus, Quentin.”

He laughs darkly at that. “Believe me, I know. If I could have picked literally any other thing — but that’s what was in my head.” There’s a generic framed photograph on the hotel wall above the table opposite the bed of a farmhouse in black-and-white. Sheep on the grassy hill. The grainy dots of animals are swimming in his vision. He’s drunk and he took one of the pills from Santa Fe and he can feel a headache coming on but the worst part is he’s not even sure that’s why he’s saying what he’s saying. “I had someone else’s perfectly good dick in my mouth, and all I could see in my head was — do you remember it?”

Eliot’s voice soft, careful. “Of course I do.”

“I thought I was going to go crazy,” Quentin says. “She died and I thought I would never want to touch anyone, ever again. I felt like something had died in my body with her. For months it was like that. Almost a whole year. And then one day I woke up and out of nowhere I was as horny as I’d been in my life. I felt like I was fucking fourteen years old again. Trying to find ten minutes alone to jerk off. I thought I’d never — I thought it would always feel like I was betraying her memory, to even imagine — but it didn’t.” He should stop. He should hang up. He shouldn’t keep — “It just felt good. Like I’d loved someone completely, and I still missed her like a lung but I could see now at the end of it that there wasn’t anything else for me to give her. Because I’d given her everything, and I could — rest easy, knowing that.”

Eliot doesn’t say anything. Quentin listens, for a moment, to the silence on the line.

“And obviously it was you,” he goes on, “every time. Things we’d done, things we’d never done. Your cock, your ass, your chest. Your fucking hands. Sometimes just your face — I was such a live wire I could just remember that way you had of looking at me and that would be enough. And meanwhile you were treating me like I was some fucking vestal virgin. Like if you touched me wrong a lightning bolt was going to come out of the sky and smite you. Which I thought was so weird, because I mean, we’d fucked the whole time I was married.” Sometimes with Arielle, sometimes just the two of them — fast and dirty, long and gentle, a private thing and also a room in the house of Quentin’s family in those years. He’d thought he was so lucky. “It took me forever to figure it out. To realize — you didn’t want to ask me for anything, while I was mourning. And you really thought that’s what it would be. This whole _fucking_ time, some screwed-up part of you really thought I was doing this _for_ you. Thought it was something you were taking from me.” He shakes his head. The frozen animals float like dust in his sight. “You’ve always thought I was so much more selfless than I actually am.”

“I don’t know if —”

“I felt like no matter how I tried to explain it,” Quentin says, “it just wasn’t sinking in. I thought, how am I going to make him see what he does to me? What do I need to do to get it through his thick fucking head? Standing there thinking about — about fucking all of it. The way your dick felt on my tongue, the way it felt to cram it in there until I almost fucking choked. How you tasted, coming in my mouth, how your ass tasted when I ate you out, the way you said my fucking name when my tongue was inside you — every time I did it you acted like no one had ever done that for you before. How good you fucked me, how deep and thick but also how you always fucking _knew_ , like — how to fit and when to make me ask for more and when to pound my ass until I couldn’t even talk. What you looked like when I fucked you — like it always took you a minute to just chill out about it, and then you looked so goddamn — _grateful_ , fuck. That thing where you would run your fingers along my teeth. The back of your throat on my dick. How you could hold me down until I forgot — everything, Jesus, until I was just this — fucked out nerve ending, and nothing else mattered as long as you kept me there. Like just the idea that there was any part of me that saw this as some kind of favor —” That had hurt, he remembers now, in an anesthetized way; a pain he knows happened but can’t quite recall the shape of. A pain that had belonged to someone else. “Are you hard? Do you feel super weird about it?”

Eliot chokes out “I —”; dissolves into a silence that’s as good as a confession.

“I am,” Quentin says. He reaches his hand down to begin stroking himself, firm and slow. “Both of those things. It’s like you said, right? If we’re going to be this fucked up we might as well get off while we’re here.”

“That’s not exactly what I —”

“Do you remember what I said?” Quentin says. “Because as much as I hate to admit it, you were right. I had all this shit in my head, but I couldn’t — I could never talk about it. Not like that. I was too fucking — uptight, or embarrassed or — whatever bullshit reason, I couldn’t just tell you this — this simplest possible thing of what we had done and what I’d liked. So do you remember what I said instead?”

Eliot doesn’t answer right away. Quentin waits for what feels a long time, wondering if he’s going to hang up. Quentin would deserve that, he figures. Whatever equilibrium of betrayal he’d been imagining teetering towards a balance between them, he thinks he might have crossed it by now.

Finally Eliot says, rough, like a succumbing, “I remember.”

Quentin nods to himself, tightening his grip. “I said — “ It’s not as difficult to resurrect the outgrown desperation as it should be. “Fucking watch me then.”

Eliot makes a shuddering sigh into the phone.

“I’d never done that for you before,” Quentin says. Remembering: quick wards around the edges of the door to keep light from spilling out. A hasty fire spell to light the room so Eliot could see. Nerves and desire in the pit of his stomach. Like their first real kiss, almost: that kind of anxious longing. “I’d watched you jerk off and I’d loved it, with those fucking hands on that fucking cock, and we’d done all kinds of other shit by then, but I’d never, ever made myself come where you could see. I knew you would have been into it, but I was too scared. Too fucking shy. And you never asked. See, you were always the selfless one.”

“Quentin —” Quentin can see it: Eliot’s eyes fluttering shut.

“But I had something to prove,” he says. “I couldn’t think of any better way to show you — you don’t even have to touch me. That’s how bad I want you.”

“You took off all your clothes,” Eliot says. “You’d never done that before, either. Just — stripped for me like that.”

“No, I hadn’t,” Quentin agrees. Standing there in the firelight every inch on display in that way he’d always resisted, waiting for someone else to undress him or at least ask, opting when possible to lie beneath or kneel in front, shielded from sight, if not in the dark. Eliot’s mouth falling open, drinking in the sight of him. “And I’d never tied your wrists behind your back. I wasn’t sure you’d let me do it.”

“I wanted,” Eliot says, “I knew you were being fucking brave and I wanted to show you I could be brave, too, I could — it wasn’t just the things I already liked, if there was something you wanted I could —”

“I didn’t think I’d like it as much as I did,” Quentin says. “I was just making a point, like — look, we can set everything else as off-limits as physically possible and I’m still going to be here losing my mind just from being in the same room as you. But I did like it. The way you looked just — waiting for me.” How he had bound Eliot’s wrists with a scarf, gently, just tight enough to keep him still — nothing at all like the ropes Eliot pulled taut against Quentin’s skin, leaving pink marks when they were gone. The same action but it became something completely different. Quentin thought that was the first time he really understood how that could be true.

“I could tell,” Eliot says. “I could tell, you looked — surprised, and excited, and kind of confused —”

“That sounds right,” Quentin says. “It made it easy to get myself started.”

“You were incredible,” Eliot says, ragged. “It was — you were right, I did want to just — just _watch_ you, god, you were perfect — you were nervous and that was hot and then you got into it and I couldn’t stop watching your perfect hand on your perfect dick, your perfect fucking body — I felt like I was fucking hypnotized —”

“You looked it,” Quentin says — Eliot’s eyes full, so full, his chest sagging as his breath started to catch while Quentin twisted his wrist, up and down. “I didn’t — I didn’t think I’d like that either, but I guess I am vain. I guess you were right about that too — and I didn’t have anywhere else to look, you know? I couldn’t not see it, how I made you feel. I thought it was going to be fun for you, I didn’t think you were going to get hard without even touching yourself —”

“Fuck I was so hard by the end,” Eliot breathes, “because you were so — Jesus fucking Christ, the way you looked —”

“When I saw your hard-on that was almost it for me,” Quentin says. “I was already so close. And then you started —”

“That’s right,” Eliot says. Just like he did then. “That’s right, that’s right, you’re perfect, holy fucking god, Q, that’s perfect —”

Quentin’s muscles tighten with a jerk. “I would have done anything if you said it like that,” he says. “You started talking and that was it, I was done.”

“Coming all over yourself,” Eliot gasps, “making a mess on your perfect stomach, almost fucking falling down — for me —”

“And then I did get down,” Quentin says. 

“On your hands and fucking knees,” Eliot says — the hard floor cold under his knees, the night air suddenly cool on his bare skin — “You fucking — _crawled_ over to me, ass in the air, looking at me the whole fucking time —”

“I wanted you to see,” Quentin says, “this was all me, what I was giving you. You had never taken shit. The tip of your dick was already wet when I got there, this one drop dripping down which I thought was the hottest fucking thing I’d ever seen —” Eliot moans, Eliot moaned, that noise burned eternally in Quentin’s ears — “and it was so red and thick and _big_ and I was so —”

“Hungry for it,” Eliot says, “I mean you always were but this was something else, you were fucking —”

“Dying for it,” Quentin says. “That’s what it felt like — I was fucking dying for your cock and now you had finally figured that out and I could just — _take_ it —”

“All the fucking way — I thought you were going to fucking choke —”

“I was right up against gagging but that’s how I wanted it —”

“Jesus _fuck_ —”

“That’s how I always wanted it, Eliot, that was the whole _point_ ,” Quentin says, breathing hard, “that I had wanted — all of it, all of you, your face and your body and your fucking _fucking_ voice and your fucking huge dick filling me up every which way and coming — god you were so close you barely lasted once I got on you, I wasn’t expecting it, I couldn’t swallow, it went —”

“All over,” Eliot pants like Eliot panted, “all over your lips and your — chin and — fuck, _fuck_ —” And then he’s making this deep wrenching noise and Quentin is hearing it on the phone and Quentin is remembering the taste of him filling his mouth and the sound of his pleasure filling his ears and how his body, his whole body shook because of what Quentin had given him and he comes in the hotel room with an ugly choked-off cry.

“Jesus,” Eliot says, still breathless, and then again, “Jesus.”

“And then I didn’t feel like I was dying anymore,” Quentin says. He doesn’t feel like he’s saying it to Eliot. He hardly feels like he’s saying it at all. “Then I felt so alive.” He lies on his back, breathing. Remembering. Those were the words he had thought that night. He knows that. He remembers what it felt like to touch himself and crawl across the floor and open up for Eliot’s cock. The salt spilling out onto his skin. But he can’t remember what it felt like after. What he meant inside himself when he thought: _I feel alive again, I feel so alive_.

“Q…” There’s a long hesitant pause. Eliot with something on his mind, deciding whether to say the words aloud. “Maybe you and I should —”

“I have to go,” Quentin says. He hangs up but he doesn’t go anywhere. He lies in his own mess, watching the animals in the photograph drift, unmoored in his gaze from the places they belong.

-

He closes out a bar by himself and then wanders the streets brown-bagging a bottle of tequila until dawn, knowing it’s stupid but half-hoping to get mugged. He could use something like that. A punch to the face, knife to his back. Blood spilling out over his teeth, his mouth. Black eye swelling up so that anyone who looked at him would know something wrong had happened there. Somewhere he could touch every day for a long time after and feel that he had been hurt. But no one approaches him.

When he staggers towards Julia waiting outside the car in the hotel parking lot with the keys in her hand she takes him in with a kind of slow motion horror dawning on her face.

“Oh shit,” he says, “was it my turn to drive? Sorry, I forgot.” He can’t tell if she knows he’s lying. She probably does. She’s smart and she knows him and he’s not trying that hard.

Julia shakes her head. She looks like she can’t decide whether to hit him or cry. “Just get in the car.”

_Fort Duchesne, UT_

“Do you think I’m a sociopath?”

The guy whose bed he’s in laughs. “Are you serious?”

Quentin shrugs. “I’m not saying you’re like the definitive word. I was just wondering.”

“Uh,” says the guy. “I just met you, but I guess I’d say probably… not? You seem… nice.” His face suggests he’s starting to doubt that assessment. “I mean — I sure _hope_ you’re not a sociopath.”

Quentin figures it’s probably a weird question to hear from someone whose cock was in your ass five minutes ago. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I’m not going to murder you and hide your extremeties in my freezer.” The guy looks less than appeased so Quentin adds, “That was a joke.”

The guy laughs nervously. “Right. Funny.”

“You know,” Quentin says, “I just remembered I have a — thing, tomorrow — I should probably…”

“Yeah,” says the guy, nodding vigorously, “me too actually, now that you —”

“So I’ll just —” Quentin gets out of bed, dresses as fast as he can. On the street outside the house he realizes he forgot to say goodbye, but it’s not like that would have made it any less of a mistake. The conversation, or the sex he spent thinking about Eliot’s voice in his ear and hands on his hips, or the hour at the hedge bar before that sleepwalking through the same story, the story of his sacrifice and his duty. The story of his death and the story he spent years trying to believe before that and can’t believe anymore — the story where he does what he’s supposed to do.

_Salt Lake City, UT_

Another hotel room hangover in the _Groundhog Day_ rip-off of his life, Julia on the phone as he lurches back towards consciousness: “Thanks for listening. I really don’t know where I’d be without you.” Pause. “I’m not — I know, but… I know.” Pause; sigh. “I just don’t know what the right thing is to do at this point.”

Quentin knocks the clock off the night table to tell her he’s awake.

-

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” says the girl he’s with, mouth mischievous, eyes a little wild. They dropped something fucked up that made colors taste like sounds and sex feel sort of like a car wash and they’re coming down but still pretty out of it.

Quentin tries to get the phrasing right. “Is there a particular reason you haven’t killed yourself?”

“Uh…” The girl frowns above her smile, confused. “Are you, like, negging me? _After_ we had sex?”

“It’s not personal,” Quentin explains. “I’m doing like a survey. Out of a general interest.”

“Okay,” the girl says slowly. She’s looking at him the way you would look at someone you slept with and then immediately realized was a fucking crazy person. “I mean — no? Not really?”

“So you’re just out there,” Quentin says, “staying alive, for no reason. Just — just because.”

“I… guess?” She’s started drawing the blanket up around her chest. “I mean just like the basic human will to live, I guess. Animal instinct, or whatever.”

“Right,” Quentin says. “No, yeah. I totally get what that’s like.”

“Cool.” She watches him like she’s waiting for his next move to figure out if he’s like, regular crazy or grab-a-steak-knife-call-the-cops crazy. “I’m really tired — I should —”

“You should sleep,” he says, “and I should —” He doesn’t bother to finish the sentence before getting out of her bed, and she doesn’t bother to stop him.

-

Julia says, “Quentin, seriously, if you’re going to be out all night I need you to send me a text telling me that’s the plan.”

Quentin says, “Why? Are you worried I’m going to kill myself?”

“You know what?” Julia steps forward so that her face is inches from his. “Yeah. That’s exactly fucking why.”

Quentin rolls his eyes. “You’re like, totally overreacting, Julia.”

“I don’t give a shit what you think I’m doing,” she says. “Fucking text me next time or you’ll wish you had.” She opens the door and slides into the car before he can say anything in response. He stumbles around the back to get into the passenger seat. She doesn’t bother asking him to drive anymore.

_Provo, UT_

Text to Alice, sent at 3:57 a.m., Nevada time: _Was I the mistake?_

Left on read. That makes sense. He doesn’t really need to see the answer.

_Las Vegas, NV_

He’s on his back in a bed. Someone is on top of him. A woman. One hand on his dick, the other in his hair. He’s not wearing any clothes.

Quentin tries to say, “What —” It’s hard. His tongue is in her mouth. He tries to extricate himself but his head is having trouble moving.

The woman backs off a bit, gives the same husky laugh Quentin has heard dozens of times. “What’s up?”

“I…” The question throws him. He doesn’t know what’s up. He looks around: a hotel room, fancier than the ones he’s used to. Everything in it moving very fast as far as he can tell. He’s drunk, he realizes. Possibly very drunk. He was in the bar of some hotel, he thought. He remembers colored lights, and then he was in — a bathroom, maybe? Or outside on the street — talking to someone? But now he’s in a bed with this woman and — “What are we doing?”

She draws her brows together, puzzled. “Uh, what does it look like we’re doing?”

“Like we’re —” Her breasts bare above him, her dark hair curling down. “But — did we —”

The woman’s face is changing gravitationally. Everything shifting down. “Hey, dude, are you okay?”

“I’m —” Quentin looks at her, trying to — remember, or — “Who are you?”

The woman backs off him like she’s been burned. “Holy shit.”

-

He’s in a hotel room. Not theirs, it’s bigger than that. Someone is talking. A woman. “Can you hear me?”

He looks at her. She’s in a white bathrobe and she looks worried. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her before. “Who are you?”

“I think you took something,” she says, “or something like that — you’ve been really out of it —”

“Where am —” He’s not wearing any clothes. Why isn’t he wearing any clothes? He was in a bar, he thought. Dark and overpriced at some hotel. He went to the bathroom — or he stepped outside — “What the fuck is —”

“We met up at the bar,” says the woman, “we came back here and we — we messed around but it didn’t go that far, I swear, I thought you were —”

His hands are shaking. “Julia,” he says, “where’s Julia? I need, I need to call my friend, I need to call Julia, I need —”

-

He’s in a hotel room on a bed. Big one, soft sheets. Not like the stiff ones they’ve been sleeping on but that same bleached white. There’s a woman sitting perched at the edge of the bed. “Where the fuck am I,” he says.

“You’re in my hotel room,” says the woman. “I’m trying to figure out how to get you home, or — wherever. Do you know where —”

He thought he was in a bar. His hands are shaking. He’s not wearing any clothes but someone has tossed a white bathrobe over him and he draws it closer over himself instinctively. “I need Julia,” he says, “I need to call Julia —”

-

He’s in a hotel room in a bathrobe on a bed. All that white fabric. Too much of it. It feels off. Everything is moving very fast. There’s a woman kneeling on the floor in a T-shirt and sweatpants, eyes level with his head. “I got your phone out of your pants,” she’s saying, “but I don’t know the passcode, can you —”

“Where am I,” he says. “Who are you? What the fuck —”

“I’m trying to call Julia,” says the woman. “Julia’s your friend, right?”

“My — friend,” he says, “I need — I need to call Julia, I —”

“Right,” says the woman, “what’s your passcode?”

“It’s my birthday,” he says. His hands are shaking. He remembers — colored lights, the night outside — “What happened,” he says. “Where’s Julia? Where the fuck am —”

-

“Your birthday, you said it was your birthday —”

“It’s not my birthday, my birthday’s the eleventh —” He’s in a hotel room. The lights are all on. There’s a woman next to him holding a phone. “Who are you? How did I —”

“The eleventh of what,” says the woman, “what year?”

“Where’s Julia,” he says. “I need to call Julia, I need Julia to —”

“What year were you born,” says the woman.

He stares at her, confused. “Why do you need to know that?”

-

“Okay, the eleventh, can you tell me the month —”

“I’m a Cancer,” he says. “Virgo rising. But —” He looks around. This isn’t the right room. “Where am I?”

“How old are you?”

The person asking is a woman. His hands are shaking. “I’m twenty-six,” he says, “but — who are you? Where’s —”

-

“—and listen, I swear to god, I had no idea, okay? I wouldn’t have — okay. Do you want to talk to him, or something? He’s like, really freaking out.”

He’s in the wrong room. He was supposed to be in — a bar? A woman is handing him a phone and when he holds it up to his ear he hears Julia. “Q? Q, are you there?”

“Jules,” he says. “Jules where are you? I’m not —”

-

“Jules?” he says into the phone. “Jules is that you?”

“It’s me, Q. I’m still here.”

“I don’t — I don’t know where I am, I don’t know — Jules, what the fuck —”

“I know. I know, I’m coming, okay? I’ll stay on the line till I’m there. Just —”

-

“Jules?”

He’s in a hotel room and Julia is there. It’s too big, though. This isn’t where —

“Hey,” Julia says. “Can you give me your arms? Just — lift them up, there we go.”

His arms are moving. He’s wearing a white bathrobe and nothing else but Julia is sliding a sweatshirt over his shoulders, tugging at the fabric to get his head through the opening for the neck. “Jules,” he says, confused, “what’s happening? Where — how did —”

“It’s okay,” Julia says. “I’m here now, and it’s going to be okay. Okay?” She brings her hand to his face. Her dark steady eyes. Her sure smile.

He nods. His hands are shaking and he’s in the wrong room and he thought he was at a bar with colored lights or else maybe just outside it but — she’s here and it’s going to be okay. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she says. “Do you think you can slide into these sweatpants? I won’t look.”

“Yeah, I can —” He’s holding a pair of pants. His pants. He’s in a hotel room. “Jules? Jules, what’s —”

-

“Jules,” he’s saying, “Jules what’s —”

“Ssh, it’s okay.” Her steady voice. Her sure hands, pressing something towards him. “Drink some water, okay?”

He obeys. The liquid cool in his mouth. They’re at the hotel, but he doesn’t remember — he was at a bar, he thinks, and there was a woman, or — “Jules how did I —”

-

Quentin is sitting up on a bed in a hotel room. He’s dressed in his old Columbia hoodie and sweatpants. There’s a glass of water on the table beside the bed and he drinks it. He’s thirsty. When he puts it down he looks around. Everything is moving very fast. He’s drunk, he realizes. Possibly very drunk. He’s not sure he could walk right now. “Jules?”

Julia is perched on the edge of the bed next to him, watching his face. “Hey, Q,” she says.

“Jules, what —” He doesn’t remember getting back to the hotel, he realizes. He doesn’t remember putting these clothes on, or — there was a woman, he thinks; he was with a woman, and — “What happened?” He was at a bar, and then — his hands are shaking.

“I’m gonna get you some more water first, okay?” she says. “I’ll be right back.”

He nods and she takes the empty glass and goes to refill it from the tap in the bathroom sink. He notices he’s still nodding when she comes back and tells his head to stop so he can drink some more water. “What happened,” he says. “How did I — how did I get here, I — I don’t — I think I’m drunk, or —” He shakes his head, trying to focus; then rests it in his hands, regretting the movement.

“Yeah,” Julia says. “I set up a couple basic medical wards so you’d be safe to get some sleep.”

“But what —”

“You’ve been pretty in and out for a while,” Julia says. “So why don’t you drink some water, and wait a little bit, and if you’re still with me then — then we can talk, okay?”

“Okay,” he says. The anxious spinning in his head eases a little at the sound of her voice. She sounds calm and sure. He drinks some water and she watches him do it.

After a few minutes he says, “Okay, I think — I think I’m back. Or — here, or — we’re at the hotel, right?” She gives a small nod. “And I’m — drunk, obviously, but — how —”

“What do you remember?” Julia asks.

“Uh —” He closes his eyes, trying to reach for images that seem to already be vanishing like stones dropped into the sea. “I was at a bar,” he says, “at one of the big hotels on the Strip, it was — loud and crowded and insanely overpriced —” Colored lights, he remembers. Bright pink drinks poured into oversized martini glasses. “And I — I must have gone home with someone, because I wound up — in a room, I think, at the hotel, or —” In a bed, with someone on top of him, and he wasn’t wearing any clothes — his heart has started beating hard. “And I think — that’s where you picked me up, right? Because I — I guess I freaked out on her, or something —” Echoes of his own voice — _Who are you? Where the fuck am I?_ His hands are shaking.

“Yeah,” Julia says. “She called me on your phone, and I brought you back here.”

“Right, but —” He swallows, feeling nausea rising. “But I don’t, um — I don’t remember, I don’t remember if we — if we, uh —”

Julia bites her lip, looking pained. “She said you guys — fooled around, but nothing more than that. I wasn’t there, obviously, but she seemed —”

“No, but — before that, before —” His heart feels like it’s going to explode into his lungs. “I don’t remember — like, I was in the bar, and then —” The bathroom. The corner outside. He tries to see what else was happening — were there people there with him? Was he — “In my head it goes from — bar to her room and in between — it’s not, like, blurry, Julia, and it’s not — I mean it must be hours that are just _gone_ , and I don’t —” He couldn’t have — it couldn’t have — he went to the bathroom to go to the bathroom, or — he was buying drugs, maybe, but not — he couldn’t have — “I don’t know what happened.” He can barely talk. “I don’t — I don’t know what — something could have happened, if I —” He shuts his mouth tight. 

His skin is burning but inside he feels very, very cold.

“God,” Julia breathes.

Quentin covers his face with his hands. “I — I can’t — if —” He can’t say it.

“I —” Julia hesitates. “I actually know a spell.”

“A spell?” He can’t look at her. He can’t see her looking at him when he — when he could have — 

“To — it’ll show you if... “ She takes a long moment to search for the words. “If something happened to you that shouldn’t have happened.”

“Okay,” he says instantly. “Okay, yeah — yes, uh — let’s do it.” He clasps his hands in his lap, still avoiding her gaze.

Julia nods. “I’ll — listen, this is one hundred percent your choice, okay? If you want me to do it I’ll do it, no questions asked. But — you can’t unknow it, if there’s something to be known. So I just want you to be sure. It works on the past twenty-four hours, so if you want to wait until you sober up a little more —”

“No,” Quentin says. His breath is coming fast, like he can’t get enough air. “No, I can’t — I can’t wait, Julia, please —”

“Okay,” she says. “Okay.” She winces. “I don’t have any jasper, so I’m going to need to just — get my thumb on your tongue — sorry.”

“It’s fine, just —” He opens his mouth for her to reach in with a quick swipe, watches her as she works through a quick set of tuts. A little white orb starts glowing between her cupped hands.

“In a minute this’ll turn either blue or red,” Julia says. “Blue is — good news, basically. I can sustain it at a distance, if you want me to give you some privacy.”

He shakes his head. “No — no, please stay.”

“Of course,” she says.

They wait, watching the edges of the orb shift subtly. Quentin is trying to remember — there wasn’t anyone there with him, was there, in the bathroom, not while he was — it couldn’t have — he wants to throw up.

Finally the orb settles its shape and darkens to — a soft pale blue. “All clear,” Julia says. “Thank god.” She brings her palms together, extinguishing the light.

Quentin lets out an exhale that feels halfway to a collapse. “Oh my god,” he says. He feels sick. “Oh my god,” he says again, and then he’s crying, ugly sobs from the very bottom of him racking his entire body, “Oh my god, Jules — Jules, I —”

“I know,” she says, coming up to sit next to him on the bed, placing her arm gently around his shoulders. “I know, Q, it’s — it’s really scary, but nothing —”

“But it could’ve — I could’ve —” He can’t speak. He buries his face in her shoulder and she pulls her other arm around him, hugging him close, saying softly again and again, “I know, Q. I know.”

“I think there’s something really wrong with me, Jules,” he whispers against her. She tightens her grip around his back. “I think — I think I’m really not okay, I think something — broke inside me, or didn’t make it back with the rest of me, or — I don’t, I look at myself in mirrors and it doesn’t look like me, it’s — I don’t know how to be him anymore, I don’t know how to be — the person I’m supposed to be, I don’t know who that is, I can’t — I keep doing all this stupid shit and I can’t — I can’t _stop_ , Jules, I can’t stop it, I don’t — I don’t know how to do anything else, I don’t know how to do anything except fucking die —”

“Q, that’s not —”

“That’s the only thing,” he says, “the only thing I ever did right, and they all know it, they all —”

“Who knows? Q, what are you —”

“— they all want _him_ , everyone wants to fucking — sleep with the guy who died, the big fucking hero of the Seam, and I can — I can give them that, but I don’t — I don’t know how to be him again and I don’t have anything else anymore, I’m never going to — there’s never going to be anything else, and I’m — scared, I’m so fucking scared all the time because I don’t — _want_ to die again but I don’t — there’s nothing else I know how to fucking do, so how do I —” He reaches out to hold onto her like a buoy in a storm, crying too hard to talk.

“God, Q,” Julia murmurs, “I’m so sorry.” She holds him and she holds him and she strokes his hair like he’s a sick little kid and it feels so nice it makes him want to die. “I’m here, okay? I’m right here.”

Eventually Quentin manages to calm down enough to lift his head and wipe his face. “I think I might have ruined your shirt,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

She gives him a crooked smile. “We’re magicians, remember?” She runs a one-handed clean-up spell on her shirt and the mess of tears and snot he left there vanishes. “See? Good as new.”

“I —” He hunches over, embarrassed about his outburst. “I’m sorry I’m such a fuck-up.”

“You’re not,” Julia says. “But I get why you feel that way.” She slides her hand into his and automatically he squeezes like he can absorb some of her strength through her touch. “You need some real help, Q.”

He nods, too wrung out to argue. “Yeah.”

“And you don’t have to find it alone,” she says. “I’m here. And I know things have been — tense, with some people, but — the others are here for you, too. We’re going to get you what you need. I promise.” Quentin nods again, the words working into his ear like a lullabye. “Right now, it’s late and you’re still pretty out of it. Why don’t you try to get some sleep, and then in the morning we can talk about what you want to do next?”

“Okay,” he agrees, exhaustion crashing on him suddenly. He shifts to lie down on his side. “Can you — stay, just a bit, until —”

“Yeah, Q,” Julia says, curling up at his back like when they were kids, snaking an arm around him so that he can hold her hand. “I can stay.”

-

They ran out of Kady’s mix in Utah, so it’s aspirin and simple carbs to white-knuckle it through the misery of the next morning. Julia manages to reschedule their next safehouse visit for tomorrow _and_ charm her way into obtaining a late check-out to give him time to sleep it off, which he feels flashes of guilt about in the rare conscious moments where he’s not puking.

They get a late lunch before heading west at some touristy 24-hour breakfast spot on the Strip where Julia said she heard the food was actually good. The pancakes are fine and the coffee is strong; after his second refill, Quentin just about feels like he’s occupying a human body again. Which is good, because Julia’s been giving him suicide-watch eyes all day. Hopefully he can pull it together enough to act normal until she drops the threat level back to her usual baseline.

“Thank god for caffeine,” he says with a grin he hopes is more wry than manic.

“Tell me about it,” she says, smiling. That’s good. Except then her expression turns serious and she says, “So, I was thinking — I know you’re nervous about going back to New York, but you don’t have to stay at the penthouse. We could go somewhere else in the city. Or _you_ could go somewhere else in the city, I’m not trying to like, micromanage your life. I was just thinking — you know people there, and there’s a huge magical population so I don’t think it would be that hard to find somewhere you could get magic-informed treatment.”

Quentin takes a sip of his coffee. He’s going to need to play this carefully. “I was planning on going back to New York,” he says. “But that’s not going to be for another couple weeks at least, right? Don’t we have a bunch of stops on the way back?”

“We did,” Julia says, “but I can talk to Kady — the removal spell’s not that hard, someone else can do it. You shouldn’t feel like you need to wait, because of that. And frankly I don’t think you should wait. I’ve been really worried about you these past few weeks.”

Quentin arranges his face into an expression of light bemusement. “I don’t need to wait for what?”

“To get help,” Julia says. “I don’t know if you were thinking a psychiatrist, or maybe starting with something else — I was looking up a directory Harriet set up, of magicians in the medical professions by region, and there are a lot of different mental health specialties —”

“Wait,” Quentin interrupts, “since when am I” — he raises his fingers for air-quotes — “‘getting help?’”

Julia stares at him, confusion creasing her forehead. “Q, last night you said —”

“Last night?” Quentin pretends to take mental inventory. “Wow, I — do _not_ remember last night, like, at all. I must have been super out of it.”

Julia’s face is falling. That feels familiar. “Are you serious?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, why? Did I say something weird?”

“I was really scared for you last night,” Julia says. “Like, actually afraid.”

He winces. “Yikes. Was I being like, a really melodramatic drunk?”

“You really don’t remember,” Julia says.

_I think there’s something really wrong with me, Jules — I think — I think I’m really not okay, I think something_ — Humiliation burns along the back of his neck. Fucking pathetic. “I really don’t,” he says, smiling. He gives a laugh, like it’s a funny story. Like, what wild and crazy shenanigans he must have gotten up to! What a scamp.

Julia purses her lips. “I don’t believe you.”

“I mean, you can accuse me of lying all you want,” Quentin says, “but it’s the truth.”

“Okay, well.” Julia shakes her head. “Even if you don’t remember, I do, and — Q, you are not okay. And that’s not fucking news by now, and I’ve been trying to give you — I don’t know. I don’t know what you need, space or support or — whatever — but last night was the difference between knowing you’re not okay and like — being actively freaked out that something is going to happen, like, imminently.”

“That I’m going to kill myself, you mean.” He levels his gaze right at her when he says it.

She doesn’t back down. Sometimes he wishes he had a more cowardly best friend. “Yes. I am afraid that you’re going to kill yourself. Or that you’re going to do something so dangerous that it kills you, instantly or slowly, because you just — can’t be bothered to stay alive.”

Quentin almost shoots back _Like the time I saved the world, you mean_ , but — he remembers enough of what he said to her that he doesn’t want to give her that opening. “Look, I’m really sorry if I worried you last night,” he says. “But whatever I said, I was just — trashed and freaking out. Right now, I feel fine.”

“It’s not about just —”

“And even if hypothetically I weren’t okay,” he goes on, “what would going back to New York do? Or anywhere? What exactly am I going to be doing there that’s so different than what I was doing there before we left, which obviously did not work out great for me?”

“You can talk to someone,” Julia says. “You can —”

“I’m not going to therapy,” he says. “And New York or not, you can’t make me.” He keeps his voice deliberately conversational for this next part. “Unless you’re planning to lock me up like your dad.”

Julia goes pale. On the table her hand clenches into a tight fist. “That is completely fucking unfair, Quentin,” she says, “and you know it.”

He forces himself not to look away. “It’s a reasonable concern.”

“Fuck you,” she spits. She stands up, pushes her chair in so roughly the tableware clatters. “Text me when you get the check. I’ll be waiting outside.”

Not exactly how he wanted this conversation to go, Quentin can admit, watching her walk away with sharp strides. But it’s over now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content notes:** While several commenters have astutely clocked that some level of dissociation is present in nearly every part of this fic, the scene taking place in Santa Fe contains probably the most explicit depiction of Quentin engaging while hugely dissociated with intense chemical assistance (explicit in the sense of being explicitly dissociated, not sexually graphic - that aspect of the scene is a handful of sentences). The sequence taking place in Las Vegas opens with Quentin starting to come to in the middle of a blackout in the middle of a hook-up he doesn't remember initiating; after several scenes flickering in and out of awareness, he spends some time afraid (without quite naming it this way, but it's clear from context) that he may have been assaulted while blacked out, until using magic to confirm he wasn't.


	6. Chapter 6

_Los Angeles, CA_

Quentin wakes up to sunlight glaring through hotel curtains and the sound of water running in the bathroom with an acid taste in his mouth and a murderous headache and reaches for his phone to check the time and sees that it’s 7:23 in the morning, on Friday, June 19th, which —

_—Is this the new Caro? Oh, I can’t wait!_

_—I wasn’t sure if you’d read this one yet, but the guy at Barnes and Noble said it came out just a couple weeks ago, so —_

_—No, I haven’t had time — it’s perfect, Curly Q. Thank you. Come here, kiddo._

_—I’m almost nineteen, Dad, I’m not a kid anymore._

_—I know, but you’re still my kid, no matter how old you get. And every single year, you’re the best present I could ask for._

_—I have to go — Julia and I are meeting some people to go see the Avengers movie —_

_—That’s great. I’m so glad you’ve made friends at college._

_—They’re not really my friends, they’re Julia’s — but she’s waiting for me, we’re going to be late —_

Yeah, no. Nope. Absolutely fucking not.

-

“How are you feeling?” Julia asks, coming over to sit beside him once she finishes getting dressed.

Quentin shrugs. “Fine?” He’s feeling pretty great, actually — he took one of the Santa Fe pills and one of the Vegas pills and a couple of other pills he doesn’t remember getting while she was showering and there was a weird off-kilter moment before the last white one had kicked in but now he feels like he’s a balloon floating about seven feet above his body.

“I know you haven’t really wanted to talk about — anything, really,” Julia says, “and I want to respect that, but if you did want to talk about anything, today, I’m here. And I promise I won’t — start the whole therapy conversation, or whatever. You can just talk, and I’ll — be there. I just wanted to say that, since… you know.”

Quentin tries to frown like he’s puzzling over a crossword clue. “Thanks, but — I don’t know, actually.”

“It’s — your dad’s birthday, right?” Julia says. “I just thought —”

“Oh,” says Quentin, “is today the nineteenth? Wow, I have totally lost track of time out here.” He stands up to get ready. When he does that his head swoops around while staying perfectly still. He feels like he’s walking on the moon. Light and frictionless. “That’s really sweet, Jules. I appreciate it. But I’m fine. Really.”

-

“I think I’m too high to get it up,” Quentin says into the phone. “So whatever you were thinking, save it for next week.”

His pleasant mood from earlier has soured. Unmarking hedges at a ranch house in Ladera Heights had taken fucking forever because he was so out of it he kept screwing up the spell and by the time they left he was coming down unpleasantly and Julia was giving him intense mom face, equal parts disappointed and concerned with just a splash of barely suppressed irritation. He tried to re-up at the hotel once he finally convinced her he wasn’t going to slit his wrists in the bathtub if she went to catch up with a friend from college but whatever combination he landed on isn’t getting him out of himself far enough or fast enough. Realizing that he couldn’t even count on a hateful and fucked up but — speaking from a purely physical standpoint — admittedly mind-blowing orgasm hadn’t helped.

“What the hell did you take?” Eliot says. Undoubtedly wrinkling his brows, raising the one, incredulous and confused — maybe just a shade judgmental. Dick. “I mean that’s happened to me, but not, like… often. And I’ve taken a lot of shit.”

“I don’t know,” Quentin says. “I still have this stuff from Santa Fe, some I think from Vegas a couple nights ago — I think those were a mistake, people will sell you fucked up shit in Vegas. Couple others from wherever, you know. Leftovers.”

“You don’t even know?”

“I didn’t fucking check out my regimen with my prescribing doctor, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“And you’re doing this regularly?”

Quentin rolls his eyes. “Not like, all the time. It’s a special occasion. We finally hit the West Coast. God. Between you and Julia I’m starting to feel like I should be looking for fucking cameras. Is Dr. Drew about to break the door down and cart me off somewhere?”

“I wasn’t saying…” Eliot trails off, like he’s not sure what he wasn’t saying. Like he thinks maybe actually he _was_ saying they should be shipping Quentin off to some facility where he’ll sit in a circle and talk about his attachment issues with D-list celebrities officially hospitalized for “exhaustion.”

“Anyway,” he says, “is this like, new information? Like have I been coming across to you as a person overly concerned with his physical health? Like, ever, honestly, but especially lately? Because if so, maybe _you’re_ the one who’s fucking high.”

“No, but —” Eliot sounds — lost, almost, or — god what is his fucking _deal_. “I didn’t think — I don’t know, Quentin. There’s drinking, or smoking a bowl to relax, or even doing E once in a while for fun or whatever, and then there’s — I mean, what, are you just popping random pills by the handful?”

Quentin has to laugh at that. “Do you hear yourself? You sound like a parent on a high school show doing a very special episode.”

Eliot gives a little huff. “Well, sorry there’s not really a snappy way to tell someone I care about that I’m worried about all the drugs he’s doing.”

Quentin keeps laughing, covering his eyes with his hand. “Are you fucking serious? Is this really what my life has come to? I’m getting wellness tips from Eliot fucking Waugh? You spend six months drinking in fucking moderation or whatever and suddenly the guy who wandered into my room my first year because he thought he was being incepted and Joseph Gordon-Levitt had told him there was a portal in the closet to take him out of the dream is lecturing me about fucking sobriety?”

“Has it occurred to you that maybe that’s why, Quentin?” Eliot says. “You’re right, I am a firsthand expert on getting fucked up. And it’s taken me a long time to see that I wasn’t just, like, partying too hard or whatever, that I was trying to find a way not to deal with —”

“Oh _please_ spare me the fucking therapy crap,” Quentin snaps. “Congratulations, you’ve figured out that your tragic childhood gave you a bunch of unhealthy coping mechanisms. What a totally fascinating and novel insight. That’s completely worth a hundred bucks a week.”

“What, and you’re so original, right?” Eliot says. Quentin feels his knuckles curling white. “There’s nothing cliché about a guy fucking his way across America while stoned out of his mind.”

“At least I’m _fun_ ,” Quentin says.

Eliot laughs. Quentin could hurl every offensive spell he knows at him without breaking a sweat. “Yeah, you seem like you’re having tons of fun. Positive _oodles_ of it.”

“As opposed to what?” Quentin demands. “As opposed to sitting in my room, freaking out all the time about the stupidest shit, too afraid of my own shadow to fucking — talk, or do _anything_? As opposed to staying up all night running through the greatest hits of my fuck-ups? As opposed to giving myself heartburn worrying about what every person I’d met in my goddamn life thought about me? Because let me tell you, asshole, that wasn’t fucking fun. Being that loser fucking sucked. Even I didn’t want to hang out with me.”

Eliot says, very quietly, “I liked that guy.”

“That’s right — you were _in love_ with him, right? Your big star-crossed romance.” Every time Quentin remembers it’s like a fresh hockey stick to the windpipe. “What the fuck did you see in him, anyway?” Eliot starts to answer but Quentin doesn’t actually want to hear it. “Did you like how fucking _sad_ he was? So you could kiss and make it better? You liked playing guardian angel to your pathetic little nerd?”

“Q —”

“You liked, what, how fucking _sweet_ he was? How much he fucking _cared?_ ” Quentin laughs hollowly. “How he was so fucking desperate he’d impale himself for anyone if he thought they’d like him for it? So lonely he felt lucky just to be allowed to breathe your fucking air? So miserable that getting fucked in a goddamn shack in the woods could feel like the best thing that ever happened to him? I mean what the fuck, Eliot — how broken does a person have to be to enjoy getting time-locked out of his actual _life_?”

“That’s not —”

“You liked how much he _needed_ you?” Quentin is shouting into the phone by now. He feels like he’s about to combust. “Did that make you feel like less of a fucking waste of space? Or, or how he was so fucking crazy that he made you seem like a functional adult by comparison? Is that why you wouldn’t let him stay at Blackspire? Because you couldn’t stand to lose your walking ego-boost?”

_—This is not what we agreed on._

_—I didn’t actually agree on anything, but —_

“You couldn’t fucking stand it,” he says, “that he might decide his life meant something that had nothing to do with you. And you fucking loved that you knew he would just — forgive you for it, no matter how clear you were that _your_ life had nothing to do with _him_. Because he could never stay fucking mad at you. Is that right?”

Quentin lets Eliot fumble his way through this one, feeling every word like salt on torn-up skin. “I couldn’t say good-bye — and I couldn’t — I couldn’t let you throw your life away like that, Quentin…”

“Because you were so fucking in love with me,” Quentin says. “But guess what, Eliot? I threw my life away anyway. You weren’t there to fucking stop me. And it was a _great_ call. I saved the fucking world. And now, I don’t fucking need you anymore. And I’m gonna stay mad at you till both of us are dead.” He hangs up before Eliot can respond.

His whole body is trembling, every muscle like a coiled spring. He feels — he could just — he wants to — with a burst of violence he hurls his phone at the wall, listening to the _thwack_ it makes on impact. It’s something. Not enough.

After another minute he pushes himself up to go retrieve it from where it fell, picks it up to see the jagged cracks across the screen. Automatically he goes through the tuts to cast to fix it before he remembers he can’t, and then he yells “ _Fuck_ ” and hits the wall again, with his fist this time, hard, over and over until his knuckles start to bleed.

-

Julia is typing on her laptop in the other bed. She came back sometime while he was passed out, having given up on the pills and opted for a bottle of gin that made him feel dizzier but not any better. He blinks himself awake feeling unmoored from the usual functioning of gravity and still so angry at Eliot he could fucking choke on it and he hates the billionth featureless hotel room ceiling and the billionth stiff white quilt that always smells the same and the sound of Julia’s fingers on the keys, that ruthlessly efficient clackety-clack. Patient Julia writing to someone who belongs in her clean fucking life, ever inoculated from the dark shadow at her side. Like when she met James, the first time they hung out as a trio, and he could see with a sudden sickening clarity that this was the world Julia had belonged in all along.

“Maybe after we get back to New York,” he says to the air, “I’ll sew rocks into my pockets and go jump in the Hudson. Very literary.”

Julia ignores this. Quentin clenches his jaw.

“Or I could jump in front of the 6 train,” he tries again. “Kind of public, but quick if I time it right. I could take a bunch of painkillers on the steps of Butler, for nostalgia’s sake. Find a tree to hang off in Riverside Park. And the bridges are always an option.”

He doesn’t look but he can hear Julia close the laptop. “How am I supposed to respond when you say this shit? Tell me what you’re looking for and I’ll give it to you, but seriously, what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”

Quentin shrugs. “I’m just thinking out loud. You’re overdue for a new _project_ by now. It’s been, what? Like twenty years? I feel like a new lost cause would be a fun change for you.”

“You’re not my _project_ ,” she says. She sounds so tired. What the hell has _she_ been doing? “You’re my friend. My best friend.”

“Yeah. Friends.” Quentin hears Eliot’s stupid fucking voice: _I liked that guy_. “Because I have a great track record with friends. I was such good friends with Eliot, and such good friends with Alice, and look at how well those friendships turned out.”

“I’m not them, Q,” she says. “You and me, we’re our own thing. I’m not going anywhere.”

Julia’s voice sounds soft and heart-heavy and sincere and it feels like swallowing razor blades. His head is spinning and his stomach hurts from the drinking and the anger and the eating too much. He hates her unrelenting faith and his broken phone and the fucking memo pads on hotel nightstands and the cough he’s started hacking unprovoked and the taste of gin and shitty cheap chocolate and off-brand trail mix in his mouth and Julia’s fucking worry and Julia’s fucking love and his jeans which dig into the flesh at his gut even when he’s lying down now and his useless hands and Eliot’s useless voice and his stupid discipline and his ugly face and his stupid life and Julia’s soft voice always reminding him that she’s still fucking there.

“Maybe you have a point,” he says. “If I haven’t scared you off by now maybe you really are stuck with me for life.”

“I guess that’s one way you could think about it,” Julia says, ”although it’s not really what I meant.”

“I bet,” Quentin says, enunciating deliberately while he stares at the ceiling, “I could even finally try to fuck you, and we’d still be friends after. Right?”

Julia doesn’t respond. Probably deciding to _not engage_. Quentin’s chest is tight. Fuck her. Fuck her for not engaging and fuck her for her fucking support and fuck his too-tight pants and fuck the ugly carpeting and fuck the gleaming white bathroom and fuck Eliot’s sanctimony and fuck his impending hangover and fuck Julia again for always being fucking _around_. She doesn’t get to insist on being here and not engage. Fuck her for thinking that. Quentin rolls onto his side to tell her that, but then he sees her face and — stops.

The first thing he notices is that she’s mad. Not just mad; angry like a vengeful ancient god. Which — Julia doesn’t get mad at him, not really; irritated, frustrated, pissed, hurt, concerned, exhausted, aggravated, sure. But he can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times in their two decades of friendship either of them has exploded at the other with actual rage. Quentin was never eager to risk the one meaningful relationship he had, but Julia — Julia guards her anger, her real anger, as vigilantly as countries guard their nuclear arsenals, and for the same reason: once that shit is out there, hell is raining down. The last time she was actually mad at him —

— well. The last time she was actually mad at him, she almost killed him.

Quentin has a feeling he would prefer that to whatever’s coming next.

The second thing he notices is that she’s crying. That’s — worse. By a lot.

Barely aware of what he’s doing Quentin hears his voice say weakly, “It was just a joke.” He’s not convinced the words make it past his throat. The room feels airless enough to suffocate all sounds.

Low and rough and looking right at him, Julia says, “Unbelievable. You are _fucking_ unbelievable.”

Panic is setting in at the back of his neck. There’s got to be some appropriate response here, but he can’t summon it. “Jules…”

“Fuck you,” she says. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck — god, I can’t —” Julia stands up with her laptop under her arm, starts gathering her things. “I can’t be here right now, I can’t — _believe_ , I can’t fucking believe — I have to go, I need —” She yanks her phone charger out of the plug behind the bed and storms over to the edge of the room and Quentin thinks the worst might be over. But she opens the door a sliver and then shoves it closed and wheels around, having changed her mind, and marches back to stand right above him.

“You know what?” she says. Quentin wants to look away but he’s transfixed by her face, trembling with dark fury and wet with tears she hasn’t bothered to clean off. “Maybe you were right. Maybe you _do_ want to be alone. Because you were _surrounded_ by people who fucking stuck their necks out, risked their actual lives — which, just FYI, some people actually value — to bring you back from the dead, and somehow, that wasn’t fucking good enough for you. And I have spent two months thinking that if I could just give you _space_ and _time_ , if I could just make sure you stayed _alive_ long enough to start processing the total fucking insanity I _know_ you’ve been through, at some point that would be enough for you to start acting like a human being again. But you are so determined to _make_ yourself unforgivable —” She closes her eyes briefly like she hates to look at him. Quentin wants to die. “Maybe one of these days, you’ll get your fucking wish.”

Julia takes a long shaky breath through her nose, eyes tilted up as if seeking heavenly guidance. Her forehead crumples for just a second before she smoothes it out to face him again. “So enjoy playing Russian Roulette with your body and finding new ways to destroy yourself with plausible deniability. Have fun _fucking_ your morbid little fanclub and self-medicating until you forget how shitty it feels. Because when you get to the end of your little tantrum, if you survive that long, you’re going to wish you could take it all back. You’re going to find yourself alone, and lost, and you’re going want to fucking crawl back to the life you convinced yourself you so badly needed to run away from, just like you’ve run away from every other fucking thing that got hard — and don’t you _fucking_ open your mouth to bullshit me about _Fillory_ or the _quest_ or the fucking _Beast_ because we both know playing the hero has never been hard for you. Only being an actual _person_ is. And when that day comes, you might be able to convince the others this was all because of your tragic, _heroic_ death. Most of them wouldn’t think to doubt it. Alice will probably buy it. Maybe even Eliot. But I know you, Quentin.” She makes a bitter sound that’s not quite a laugh. He feels like he’s stopped breathing.

“I know you,” she says, “and you can blame dying all you want — it’s a good story — but deep down you know as well as I do that this is the same shit you’ve always pulled. You have _always_ chosen literally _any other option_ except the one that would require you to be honest with yourself for five seconds. You have _always_ been looking for an airtight excuse to give up. You have _always_ put a thousand times more energy into avoiding your problems than it would take to actually fix them, because you’re too fucking scared to try and find out they can’t be fixed. And I never, ever thought that was true. I never, ever thought you were right about how unfixable you were. But —” She shakes her head, an unhappy smile spreading across her face. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe —” Julia closes her eyes again; for one horrible moment cries; then sets her face hard and says, “I have to get out of here. I have to go. Don’t —” She’s halfway out the door when she finishes, “Don’t find me.”

The door shuts with a slam. Quentin is on the bed still, shaking. Flinching from the air like her words are echoing in the room. Her wounded voice, searing and raw. He feels like he’s going to throw up. He can’t stop seeing her face in his head. Her vicious mouth, her knotted brow. Her dark eyes, red with tears.

He can’t imagine ever talking to her again and he can’t believe she’s gone.

He feels like he’s burning alive.

He —

— _This is the same shit you’ve always pulled._

_—I didn’t actually agree on anything, but —_

_—Quentin I think you need to —_

— needs a fucking drink, Jesus Christ.

-

The lights are on in the room when he half-falls into it not expecting the door to open after two unsuccessful attempts at swiping the keycard sometime around three in the morning. At first he thinks Julia’s back and in his inebriated state the thought fills him with a swirling dread oddly mixed with relief. But it’s not Julia he finds reading some thick paperback sitting up against the headboard of her bed.

It’s fucking Penny.

“Am I in hell?” Quentin asks. “Because that would explain a lot of things about my life right now, honestly.”

Penny snorts a laugh. His roommate, then; Twenty-Three doesn’t have the energy for that particular flavor of scorn. “That’s right. All of your problems are _my_ fault.”

“Why are you here,” Quentin says, leaning against the wall, even though cosmically it feels completely correct that this fucking day should fucking end with Penny Adiyodi, magically arrived to torment him once again.

“Because,” Penny says, “even _Julia_ got sick of baby-sitting your trainwreck ass, but she’s too good a person to abandon you to the consequences of your actions, so I’m here to make sure you don’t get hit by a truck or die in your sleep. If you weren’t back by four I was gonna run a locator spell and drag you out of whatever innocent bystander’s bedroom you were terrorizing.”

“Right,” Quentin says. “And you’re doing this because you’re just so invested in my continued survival.”

“You know me,” Penny says. “I live to do favors for friends.”

“We’re not friends.”

“Not _you_ , dumbass. God you’re fucking self-absorbed.”

Quentin laughs disbelievingly. “Oh, you and Julia are friends now?”

“Uh, yeah,” Penny says. “Because unlike _some_ people, _I’ve_ chosen to use my miraculous second chance at life to work on my flaws and become a better, happier person.”

“Sure. Whatever.” He doesn’t have time for Penny fucking with him. “You can go back to New York and tell your new buddy Julia I’m fine. I don’t need fucking supervision.”

“Yeah,” Penny says, “you’re clearly fine. You definitely look like a person who has a one hundred percent chance of living to see tomorrow.”

“I’m doing _great_ , actually,” Quentin says. “I had sex with two different people tonight.” He holds up bunny-ears fingers to show the number. It takes him a moment to regain his balance.

Penny gasps sarcastically. “Oh em gee, you had _sex_? Like you went all the way? Wow, you’re sooooo cool. The other tenth graders are gonna be like, _so_ jealous.”

“Fuck you,” Quentin says. He wishes he didn’t sway as he says it, but he does.

Penny rolls his eyes. “Can you pass the fuck out already like your body is obviously begging you to do so I can text Julia that you’ve been tucked in safe, sound, and magically prohibited from choking on your own vomit?”

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Quentin says. “I’m chemically wide fucking awake for another hour, at least.”

“Brilliant,” Penny says. “Because the one thing known to make high-strung nerds with anxiety disorders more tolerable to be around is _fucking coke_. Amazing choices, all around.”

“Why is everyone so _uptight_ lately,” Quentin complains. “And relax, I’m like ninety-five percent sure it was just Adderall.”

“You can still lie down,” Penny says. “I’m getting motion sick just watching you try to stay upright.”

“I’m,” Quentin starts to argue, but then — “Oh, fuck” — his body revolts and he dashes into the bathroom to throw up in the toilet.

He’s down there for a while, the first acrid burst followed by unrelenting spasmic heaves long past the moment his stomach has been emptied. His digestive tract feels like a towel someone is vigorously wringing out. Even once he’s flushed the last vile expulsion from the bowl and wiped the long strings of spit from his mouth he feels sick — too settled to keep puking, too nauseous to move anywhere without risking it. He closes the lid and rests his cheek against the white porcelain, unsuccessfully willing the floor to stay still.

Penny has for some godforsaken reason made his way to the cramped bathroom, leaning against the doorframe. “You must be loving this,” Quentin says. It comes out less snide and more bitter than he wanted.

“Oh yeah,” Penny says with a sarcastic nod, “watching my dipshit grad school roommate’s internal organs turn themselves inside out is _so_ much more fun than being asleep at what is six-thirty in the morning, my time, with the beautiful, brilliant love of my life in my arms. Do you hear the noises that come out of your mouth when you talk, like, at all?”

“Congratulations on your fucking domestic bliss.”

“See,” Penny says, “when _I_ convince someone so incredible that her legit _mind-blowing hotness_ is only like the thousandth most amazing thing about her to fall in love with me, _my_ first priority upon coming back to life is to keep her happy by being the boyfriend she deserves. I understand that’s not everyone’s style.”

“Fuck you,” Quentin says again, but his heart’s not in it. He can tell his inner chemistry has definitively passed the turning point towards gradual and unwelcome sobriety and with it approaches the overly familiar fucking bell jar of despair. The Adderall was a bad idea. He should be asleep for this. His stomach is roiling again and he has to lift his head to gag into the toilet for a minute, dissolving by the end into a coughing fit. By the time he’s set his head back down Penny is waving a glass of water in his face.

“Julia’s gonna be annoyed if I don’t try to get you to hydrate,” Penny says.

“If I drink that right now,” Quentin says, “I am going to hurl all over you.”

Penny clicks his tongue. “Roger that.” He sets the glass on the edge of the sink.

It’s a weirdly undickish interaction. Quentin doesn’t like it. It makes him feel even more like he’s living out some nightmare alternate reality from which he can’t wake up. He closes his eyes but that doesn’t make it better. Then he’s left with just the dark and himself and the ghosts of everything he’s done and wishes he could wash away.

Opening his eyes Quentin says, “Do you think I’m a sociopath?”

“Man,” Penny says, “I think your life would be… _so_ much easier if you were a sociopath.”

Quentin tries and fails to scoff. “Yeah, my problem is definitely that I care too fucking much. That’s how we got here.”

“You wanna know what your problem is?” Penny says. “Speaking as a person who has been exposed to _way_ more of your problems than I ever wanted to care about?”

Quentin manages to croak a laugh. “Let’s see if I can guess: my hair, my clothes, my face, my taste in music, my taste in books, my taste in movies, my hobbies, the way I talk, the way I move, how irritating I am, how stupid I am, how shitty my wards are.... How am I doing? Does that pretty much cover it?”

Out of the corner of his eye Quentin sees Penny shake his head. “Not even close, dude. You — unsurprisingly — suck at this.”

“Then by all means,” Quentin says, “fucking enlighten me.”

“For real?”

“Honestly,” Quentin says, wallowing in masochism, “right now it’s not like I can feel any worse, so. Here’s your fucking chance.”

Penny seems to weigh the possibility seriously for a moment. It’s almost disturbingly bizarre coming from the guy who signed a billion years away without bothering to check the fine print. “Okay,” Penny says. “Your problem is — you are so fucking obsessed with your own misery, you can’t look up for half a second to actually notice when something good shows up.”

That is — even more fucking idiotic than Quentin could have anticipated. It almost cheers him up. “Yeah, because so many good things have been happening for me lately.”

“Uh, the fact that Julia has not straight-up murdered you yet?” Penny says. “Like, icepick-to-the-skull, dump-your-body-by-the-side-of-the-road murdered? That’s more luck than some people see in their lifetimes, dude. If it were me you would have been decomposing somewhere around the Rocky Mountains.”

“I’ll be sure to put it in my gratitude list,” Quentin snaps, “right after I drink my fucking green juice and meditate till my eyes fall out.”

“Oh my bad,” Penny says, “I forgot you only wanted to engage with medically validated, evidence-based treatments for what I believe the psychiatric community calls ‘being a complete disaster.’ That’s why you’re sticking to therapy and meds.”

“According to you I don’t need therapy,” Quentin says. “I just need to count my fucking blessings.”

“No,” Penny says, like he’s talking to someone as stupid as he thinks Quentin is but who he likes a lot more. “You need to _see reality_ as it _actually exists_. Your life is fucked, no one’s arguing that — although I’d bet a grand that it’s not fucked in any of the actual ways you think. But it’s like you’re too addicted to your fucking tortured sadsack routine to even consider that there’s anything else outside it.”

“I love being myself too much,” Quentin says. “That sounds right.”

“I mean,” Penny continues, “do you know what I would have done to have someone like Julia in my life when I was a kid? To have _anyone_ , for _any_ length of time, besides the fucking _Beast_?”

“Yes your life is extremely hard and tragic,” Quentin says, “and I’m an ungrateful pussy. Got it. Wow, you would make a great shrink.”

Penny buries his face in his hands and groans. “Oh my _god_ , it’s like trying to have a conversation with a busted ATM. See, this is why I didn’t even bother to be nice to you at school. I knew it would end up like this.”

“Damn,” says Quentin, “are you like psychic or something?”

“Forget the Rocky Mountains,” Penny says. “We wouldn’t have made it to the Mississippi. I would have either stabbed you or driven the car into a lake by Ohio.”

“Sorry that my negativity is really harshing your flow,” Quentin says. He wants to glare at Penny but he thinks if he moves his facial muscles he might lose his tentative equilibrium and slump right to the floor. “Sorry I’m getting in the way of everyone’s fucking new lease on life. You have your fucking — post-resurrection second wind and Julia has her _projects_ and not smoking and Eliot has his goddamn therapist and responsible drinking and everything would just be _perfect_ , just be sunshine and fucking daisies, if I could just get with the goddamn program. It would be the fucking Brady Bunch over here if Quentin could just get the fuck over himself, right? So _forgive me_ if something as inconsequential as _dying_ because I had to _save the world_ has kind of fucked my ability to see the glass half full.”

“Okay, did you forget who you’re talking to?” Penny says. “I am obviously the single person on earth _least_ capable of being impressed by that.”

“I didn’t get to astral project and start a new gig,” Quentin returns. “And my death wasn’t a fucking unforeseen side effect. It was a choice I made for the greater good. How’s that for dealing with reality, or — or running when it gets hard, huh? I saw what I had to do, and I fucking did it.”

“Wait wait wait —” Penny leans in, eyes narrowed. “Is _that_ the story you’ve been telling yourself about how it went down? You did what you _had_ to do?”

“Oh,” Quentin says, “were you there? Would you like to correct my recollection of my own fucking death?”

Penny takes a long inhale through his nose; tilts his chin like he’s debating with himself. Quentin feels an inexplicable flutter of nervousness. “So the Underworld is pretty proprietary about their shit,” he says. “That’s why none of the others are allowed to explain exactly how they got us out, and why you don’t remember anything that happened there. They wiped us both pretty hard. They’re big on no spoilers down there.”

“Fascinating,” Quentin mutters, “please tell me more.”

“But I was down there a long-ass time,” Penny says. “I did a lot of shit for them. They missed a couple spots.” He lowers himself so that he’s crouched eye-level with Quentin. “I ran into my other self at one point — Twenty-Three. That was fucking trippy. We were in kind of a — liminal space, while he was accidentally timeline-hopping. They didn’t think to check for that, when they were sucking out my memories. So I remember our conversation. And I remember the context — why I said the things I said. Why I told him to do what I told him to do.”

“Did you tell him to buy more scarves?”

Penny laughs. Quentin doesn’t like it. He feels a headache coming on. “The Underworld did _not_ want Everett to become a god. Hades had some skin in that game. They had the scribes working overtime, gaming out the possibilities like a weird destiny playbook. There were a _lot_ of versions of the story where he succeeded. We knew that it would be coming down to you, Alice, and Twenty-Three in there with him, and any hesitation could be the butterfly flapping its wings. So when I found myself chatting with my previous iteration, I took the chance to grease the wheels a bit. I told Twenty-Three — when the moment comes, remember that I said, do it. Do what he says.”

_—Take her. Do it. Now._

A long harsh laugh snakes its way through Quentin’s spine at this latest punchline of the grand existential joke that is his life and apparently his death. “That’s great. That’s really great. You were the one digging my grave for me before I was even dead. That feels right. You’d, what —” He tries to piece together the scene as it might have branched out from that moment. “You’d seen that I wouldn’t risk Alice, even for that, so you made sure when the time came, I could die easy knowing she’d be getting out. Is that right? Because if so, thanks. That was really fucking considerate of you.”

“Nice try,” Penny says, “but not exactly. See, the way _we_ thought it was going to go down, you took a different gamble. You made Everett go fetch the god bottle, and while he was claiming his prize, you huddled up with the others to travel out.”

Quentin blinks. “But you can’t travel in the Mirror Realm. Alice said —”

“Alice was a Niffin,” Penny says, “not a Traveler. She could guess — but she didn’t know. Traveling’s not a spell. It uses no ambient, and it leaves no residue. You knew that, because you remembered I could still do my thing when magic was shut off. Bringing someone with you _is_ a spell, but if you had it figured right — if the three if you could travel out simultaneously with the spell it would take Twenty-Three to bring you with him —”

“— we wouldn’t be there to see the recoil,” Quentin realizes. Even in his current state the logic of it assembles itself in his mind with the elegant clarity of a geometric proof. He swallows. “But — but we couldn’t know that would work, I mean there’s hardly any information about the Mirror Realm out there, it’s insanely unstable, Alice said even as a Niffin she didn’t know the rules of the place —”

“Yeah,” Penny said. “That’s what Twenty-Three and Alice said when you tried to get them to go. And in the time you spent arguing about it, Everett absorbed the monster, and it was game over. So I told him not to hesitate. Because I knew you were right — shit would go crazy in the Mirror Realm, but you wouldn’t be around to deal with it. Only Everett would.”

“But —” Quentin’s pulse is pounding in his ears. His hands are cold. “But the monster —”

“You thought,” Penny said, “one down, right? Maybe it would wind up trapped in the Mirror Realm long enough for you to figure out a way to shut it down for good, maybe it would escape and you’d come back to it later. But the sister was gone, and as for him — you figured you’d survived him this long, you could fight another day.” Penny shrugs. “As it happened, in the version I saw, Everett tried to fix the mirror himself in a last-ditch attempt to escape. In all the chaos the bottle wound up bouncing right in.”

“I —” His breath is coming shallowly. He feels like he can’t get enough air. “No, that’s not — what you’re saying is, is crazy, it’s impossible, it — you’re fucking with me.” He’s shaking his head, he can’t stop shaking his head. “There’s no way, because if that’s true, that means —”

Quentin clamps his mouth shut.

Penny finishes the thought for him: “You didn’t have to die.”

_—It goes bad fast here._

Alice’s worried face; the other Penny watching in horror, then trying to parse the message in Quentin’s eyes. The message he was sending because he’d thought —

_—You always were smarter than the books gave you credit for._

Everett’s calm face, his confident voice. The split-second algebra of their bodies in space and the danger at hand and then the answer presenting itself with mathematical precision —

_—Quentin I think you need to —_

— or even better with the gravitational pull of a story. The comforting rhythms of a story he knew. A good story. The story he had been hearing and telling and wanting his whole life. Because Everett had said —

_—You’ll go down as a hero. I’ll make sure of it._

And Quentin had thought: _This time, I will._

He’s going to be sick again.

He lifts the lid of the toilet and retches into it, nothing left in him but air and nausea, like his body is rejecting the very concept of peace. Punishing him for everything he’s done to it and every lie he’s told about what it meant. Gagging while his guts convulse until his eyes are tearing and his throat burns.

When he can take in shaky but steady breaths he leans back down, staring into space. Feeling like something is crumbling inside him. Like in his lungs is that room again collapsing in the backfire of his magic. The magic that was supposed to be his, the magic meant for fixing things and which he might never use again. That was the last time, he realizes. The last time his hands cast to make something whole and it was so he could —

What the fuck had he done?

Quentin says, voice hoarse, “Did she — did Julia tell you what I said?”

Penny exhales slowly before answering. “Yep.”

Quentin’s throat tightens. “It — it was bad, right? Like — really bad.”

“I mean,” Penny says, “it sure as shit wasn’t good.”

“What the fuck is wrong with me,” Quentin says. “How could — how did I — when did —” He can’t talk. He can barely think. He feels his heart in his throat like it’s trying to break through the skin.

_—Take her. Do it. Now._

— _This is the same shit you’ve always pulled._

_—This is not what we agreed on._

“I’ve given you my answer,” Penny is saying, “but if you want more free advice, I don’t actually think that’s the most important question for you right now.”

“Then what the fuck should I…” Quentin is starting to cry. “Oh, god. Oh my god. I —”

Penny offers him the glass of water again. Quentin stares at it, trying to remember how to move his hands. “What you should be asking,” Penny says, “is: what the fuck are you going to do now?”

-

He wakes up to the sound of voices coming from the other end of the room.

“Are you sure you want me to leave you here with him?” Penny. “I can stick around. Or haul his ass back to New York. I can drop him in Siberia, if you want. Leave him at the edge of a swamp.”

“Thanks,” says Julia. “But we’ll be okay.”

“Man, after what he pulled? He’s lucky I didn’t kill him myself last night.”

“It’s really hard for him now. It’s been less than a year since he came back.”

“It’s been less than a year since _I_ came back, and you don’t see me making excuses for treating people like shit.”

“I’m not _making excuses_. Trust me, I’m fucking pissed. But you weren’t around before he died. It was — a really fucked up time.”

“Okay, but we’ve all been through fucked up times, and most of us are pulling it together enough to be decent people. How long does he get to keep being an asshole before someone says, enough, you’re a fucking adult, now act like it or get the fuck out?”

“I’m not writing off my best friend as a lost cause, Penny.” Tensing now, defensive. It makes Quentin feel — something sick and sad passes through him. Grateful and spiteful and undeserving and ashamed.

“I’m not — that’s not what I’m saying.” Softening. “I know how much you care about him. And believe it or not, I don’t _not_ care about him. I just worry, if you’re taking care of him, who’s taking care of you, J?”

 _J?_ Quentin mouths to himself. What the _fuck?_

“I can take care of myself,” Julia says, but not dismissive or annoyed. Warm, like she — appreciates him? With a shock Quentin remembers her comfortable phone calls. “Trust me, I’m fine.”

“Okay, but you _have_ to promise to let me take you out for a drink when you get back to the city. Or like, a spa day.”

“Of course.” Quentin can hear a smile in Julia’s voice now, one he hasn’t heard for himself in weeks. His stomach churns. “PJ for life, right?”

“You know it, girl.”

PJ? _Girl_?

“Sometimes I can’t believe it took us so long to click. I mean, now I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Hey, I was a dick before. You weren’t missing much.” Laughter, cozy and easy.

Holy shit, they really are friends. Quentin feels like the earth is dissolving beneath him.

Penny and Julia exchange affectionate goodbyes while Quentin listens to the blood rushing in his ears. Then Penny’s gone and Julia’s walking back in before he has time to wonder whether he should pretend to be asleep.

Julia sits on the edge of her bed, eyes boring into his. All traces of lightness from her conversation with Penny are gone. She digs into her pocket and pulls out a vial with a familiar green liquid. “I stocked up while I was home.”

Quentin reaches out for it, then drops his hand. “I don’t want it.”

“Oh, what,” she says, sounding exhausted, “now Kady’s potion skills aren’t good enough for you? Or is it because I’m the one giving it to you, you’re not done acting out yet?”

“No, I —” He shakes his head as far as his hangover will allow, which isn’t far. “I just — I need to start living with the consequences of my actions.”

Julia flicks her eyes upwards in irritation. “That’s idiotic.”

“Well,” he says, “I’m an idiot, so.”

Julia doesn’t laugh. He wasn’t really kidding. “Fine. Lie there feeling like shit if you want, but I need you to listen to me.” Her face is stone-hard when she says, low and steady as earth, “What you did was not okay.”

“I didn’t mean it,” he offers weakly.

Julia closes her eyes briefly like she’s gathering her strength. “Please tell me you understand that wasn’t the problem with what you said. Please tell me I don’t have to explain that to you.”

Quentin swallows. “I know. I’m — I’m sorry.” It sounds so inadequate. So grossly, miserably not enough.

Julia nods in minute acknowledgement. “You can’t do that again.”

“I know.”

“And I don’t mean — just the specific thing you said last night,” she says. “I mean, there’s having a hard time, and fucking up, and acting like a dick — and then there’s being a complete and total piece of shit. And I have known you too long, Quentin, for you to pretend like you don’t know exactly where that line is, no matter how fucked your head gets. And — you can’t cross it again. Or I’ll —” He watches her swallow back some painful emotion that almost rises to the surface and feels like he’s been flattened by it. “You just can’t do it again. Got it?”

“Yeah,” he says. It comes out barely a whisper.

“Good.” She takes a deep breath, punctuating the end of her statement. Then she sets the vial of Kady’s remedy on the nightstand. “I don’t really care if you want to punish yourself, but we need to get going, so — if you’re too hungover for the car, take it so we’re not late. I’ll meet you down there when you’re ready.” She stands and leaves the room without another word, hoisting her bag over her shoulder on her way out.

_Southbound on I-5_

The drive is — tense. To say the least. Quentin spends most of it curled up in the passenger seat with his shins against the dashboard, watching cars on the highway.

As they’re turning into the city he asks, “Why didn’t you tell me you and Penny were friends?”

Julia’s mouth tenses, like she’s gauging the probability that he’s asking to pick a fight. “I don’t know. It never came up.”

“Because I didn’t ask,” Quentin says.

She rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t trying to pull some passive-aggressive —”

“No I know,” Quentin says, “I just — I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to start anything. I just meant… I never asked.”

Julia chews on her bottom lip. “Okay.”

“When did it happen?”

She sighs. He almost tells her to forget it but she starts to talk. “Getting you back involved a lot of — bureaucratic wrangling, with the Underworld. Some quid pro quo, so to speak. There were contracts to agree on, and terms to be met. It turns out I have some kind of liminality pass from being — ‘god-touched,’” faded disgust in her voice on the phrase, “so Penny and I wound up as kind of liaisons working pretty closely together for a few months, and we… bonded, I guess. I don’t know. We get along, we have fun. He’s a good friend.”

Quentin doesn’t say _unlike me_ , but he’s thinking it. He wonders if she’s thinking it, too. He thinks he should be glad that she’s had someone on her side while he’s been so — whatever he’s been — but he can’t make himself feel it. He wonders if he ever will. If he even can anymore, or if it’s gone with all the other things he decided to destroy.

_San Diego, CA_

The safehouse in San Diego is the last in a row of beachfront dwellings along Mission Bay. From the lot they park in it looms modern and imposing, gleaming white with jutting angles and tall windows of blue-tinted glass, but once they step within its wards it reveals itself as an older structure, two broad stories of wooden siding painted a pale mint green with a garden nestled in a set of raised dirt beds on the pavement by its side. As Julia rings the bell, a windchime above them sways in the breeze, making soft chirping bird-call sounds with every gentle collision of its thin metallic pipes.

The removal goes uneventfully, thank god. Afterwards he hangs tight by Julia with his hands in his pockets while she makes the requisite small talk, drawing comfort from her presence even as it stings to watch her chat with a carefree smile so far from the way she’s been looking at him lately. Around her he feels somehow both four inches tall and grotesquely large, with last night like some dybbuk lurking at the corners of his vision, tainting every minute even as he can’t bring himself to look at it directly.

“Yeah, we drove down from L. A. this morning,” Julia is saying to a broad-shouldered Black man in maybe his early forties, one of the older residents of the house. “We were supposed to start heading back east through Arizona — actually probably tonight, since we were going pretty far — but Kady — you talked to Kady, right?”

“Who hasn’t talked to Kady,” says a white woman about the man’s age, honey-colored hair in a long loose braid.

Julia laughs. “Right — well, she actually just texted me that she’s got some contacts in the region, or something, so we’re holding on that until she lets us know what’s up. I guess we’ll find a hotel in the city.” Quentin has no idea about any of this. It strikes him that it’s been a while since she bothered to update him on their plans.

“I’d invite you to crash here for the night,” says the man, “but we’re having our solstice party, so I don’t know how much sleep you’d get. You’re welcome to stop by for that, though.”

“Oh,” Julia says, “do you all do some kind of solar ritual?”

A girl closer to their age with jet black hair falling straight to her chin laughs. “No, it’s literally just an excuse to have a party. But we throw good parties.”

Quentin says, “Sounds fun. Maybe we’ll see you there.” He doesn’t know why he says it. Because it’s what he’s supposed to say. Because he’s running on autopilot like a malfunctioning automaton and that’s how his internal processor responded to the input. Because when he thinks of spending the hours from now until sleep in a hotel room either by himself or with Julia he feels like his skin is too tight for his body.

Julia’s polite smile falters just barely enough that Quentin knows no one else would notice.

When they get back to the car Quentin says, “You can say what you’re thinking. I’m not going to — bite your head off.”

Julia studies him like she’s trying to decide if this is true. “Do you really think you’re in the best shape to go to some random hedge party right now?”

Quentin shrugs. “I don’t know. They seem like pretty low-key people. I doubt they’re going to have anything harder than like, niche IPAs and organic dip.”

“That’s not my point.”

“What else am I going to do,” Quentin says. It feels bigger than he wanted it to. “I mean you’re still pissed, not that I blame you, but it’s like, I’m going to what — see the local sights with someone who doesn’t even want to talk to me? Hang out in a hotel room alone feeling like shit?”

“I’m not —” Julia sighs; rests her fingertips against her forehead like Quentin is giving her a headache. “I’m tired, okay? And I’m — scared, and frustrated, and — yeah, maybe I am still kind of pissed, but that doesn’t mean — we could still do something. Watch a movie, so we don’t have to talk to each other. Whatever.”

“Yeah,” Quentin says, “maybe.” It sounds insane to say that seems too difficult, so he doesn’t say it. He doesn’t have any better ideas.

-

Julia does put on a movie once they check in, but Quentin can’t follow it even to figure out what it is. Trying just to stay still feels like attempting to keep himself cryogenically frozen while the room is on fire. He’s fucking dying to smoke or drink or kick rocks until his foot shatters but he feels like if he leaves the room Julia might — he doesn’t know what. His inner monologue is one long emergency signal, endless danger blaring without any actual words. Every now and then he’ll veer into thinking _I can’t believe_ —, and every time something short circuits before he can complete the sentence.

When the credits roll Julia sighs, studying him. “Okay. You look like you have the inner equilibrium of someone who’s just snitched on the mob.”

It surprises a laugh out of him. “I’d trade places with one of those guys if I could. No questions asked.” At least then he would know what the problem was.

“I don’t actually want to go to this fucking party,” Julia says. “But I feel like if we don’t go together, at some point in the near future you’re going to do something even stupider on your own.”

Quentin wants to tell her that’s not true; he can chill here until he falls asleep, and it’ll feel like lying on a bed of nails in a meat refrigerator but he’ll survive. And the stupid thing is he knows he could survive that, because it’s not that fucking hard. But after the past twenty-four hours the stories he’s been telling himself are scattering out of his grasp like cockroaches under light, and nothing he’s left with feels like the truth. He’s not sure he would even know the truth now if he saw it.

“I could say you’re wrong about that,” he says finally, “but I feel like — I can’t tell if I would mean that or not. I know that sounds like bullshit, but.”

Julia takes this in. Whatever she thinks of it, he can’t read it in her face. “Alright,” she says. “I guess let’s go.”

-

The party is fine. Quentin was right; the house is crowded and the drinks table is amply stocked, and there’s a tray of brownies labeled with an index card bearing a Sharpie drawing of a bright green leaf, but the scene is chill. That hasn’t been making much of a difference to him lately, but it seems to reassure Julia, at least. He expected her to guard him all evening, but she lets herself relax into a conversation about geographic influences in the development of healing spells and Quentin recedes out of her orbit, relieved that if nothing else she’s not having a miserable time.

He does feel better after a few drinks, which — whatever. If that should be on his list of concerns, it doesn’t exactly feel like a priority right now. With a decent buzz going it feels almost like the beginning of their trip, a fun night out with his best friend back when he thought things couldn’t get any worse. He doesn’t actually believe that, but pretending is a welcome break from continuing to marinate in the horror of his actual life.

He doesn’t know how he finds himself talking about the Seam again; once it’s happening, it feels inevitable, like the changing of the tides. The circle of onlookers, eyes impressed and moved and amazed, drinking in the drama and the sacrifice and their proximity to someone who lived for a while in the land of myth. To his surprise, it’s not any harder to tell the story he’s been telling now that he knows what he knows. He’s traced its arc so many times he could tell it in his sleep. Maybe always could.

“I don’t like to think of myself as a hero,” Quentin hears himself say, “because that makes it sound like it’s about me, you know? And it was about all of us. I’m just a guy who did what he had to do.” He catches Julia at the edge of the room listening in, and the carefully neutral way her eyebrows lift is so much more brutal than any actual reaction she could give. Not that he blames her. Hearing his own words, Quentin kind of wants to deck himself in the face.

“It must feel amazing,” some guy says, “to be able to really know what kind of person you are when push comes to shove.”

Quentin’s pulse skips. “It’s — okay,” he says. For some reason people laugh, which — he doesn’t want to be here, suddenly. He doesn’t want to be around their — faces and their laughter and the comforting spell of the story he told them. “I’m going to get another drink,” he says, holding up his empty bottle for emphasis, “I’ll be right back.”

He means it when he says it, but — there it is again, that gloss of uncertainty over every word out of his mouth. Because he slips into the kitchen and he gets another beer and he starts to retrace his steps back to the corner where the voices are rising amiably, but then he just — can’t. Can’t, or won’t, or — he pictures himself rejoining the group, marked permanently now no matter how the night unspools, and he — wishes he hadn’t left his cigarettes back at the hotel — his body just isn’t moving, isn’t going to take him to where he meant to go. It’s hot, suddenly, in the house, hot and crowded, bodies and sweat fighting for space, and loud, when did it get so fucking loud, and he — just needs some space. Just for a moment, and then he’ll — come back in, or else find Julia and tell her he’s ready to go. She would probably be thrilled to hear that.

The house has a wooden back porch overlooking the beach. Once he steps out into the clear night air, his skin feels a little more settled. Better yet when he shuts the sliding door behind him, muffling the sounds of the party: music and laughter and loose friendly chatter. Ten minutes ago he would have said if nothing else that was where he hated existing least, but now — Quentin leans against the porch and drinks his beer, watching the distant waves.

When he hears the door open behind him he turns around, expecting to see Julia. But it’s the dark-haired girl from earlier at the house. He thinks she was in the group listening to him talk. “Hey,” he says, trying to remember her name. He wonders what she wants — if she came out to take a break, too, or if she’s here for him. “Luisa, right?”

She nods. “Yeah, that’s me.” She smiles and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. She seems nervous. Quentin begins to brace himself for whatever’s coming.

“You guys do throw a good party,” he says to be polite, holding up his beer in a _cheers_ gesture.

“Thanks,” she says. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything — if you wanted to be alone I can go back inside.” Her eyes keep darting back and forth like they can’t stay still. He wonders if she wants to thank him for his service, or something more. He wonders if he’ll take something more, if offered. He doesn’t think he should and he’s not even sure he’d want to, but it feels like neither of those things have mattered for a long, long time.

“It’s fine,” he says. “I was just getting some air.”

She nods a little too quickly and a little too long. “So, um.” Deep breath, fidgeting with the beaded bracelet on her wrist. “I heard you talking in there, about — what happened last year, and — I really hope this isn’t too presumptuous, but —” Too-bright laugh with anxious eyes: “God, there’s just no non-awkward way to lead into this!”

She’s pretty and seems nice, although neither of those things really matter to him at this point either. He wasn’t planning to make a move on anyone tonight and has no idea if he would have made a move on her, has no idea if he would have hoped she might or if he wants what’s coming, but he can feel himself agreeing already. He feels like a piece of driftwood catching on a new current. “It’s okay,” he says to put her at ease. “I’m, like, the king of awkward.”

Luisa laughs again, still tense but more real this time. “Okay. So, um.” She closes her eyes and when she opens them she seems to have found the steadiness she needs. Quentin takes a drink. Luisa says, “I tried to kill myself when I was sixteen.”

“Oh,” Quentin says, subdued. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, it — was my only time,” she goes on, “so I’m — lucky, and these days I’m fine. Like, really great, actually, better than I ever would have thought back when — but, um, so. So since then I’ve talked about it a lot, you know, kind of counting cumulatively, and it’s gotten a lot easier, over the years. But I realized, a while ago, that — even when I’ve made the choice to talk about it, and even when it feels fine, it still sort of — wears me down, if I don’t.… I don’t know, take some space afterwards? Engage in —” She rolls her eyes like she’s annoyed by her own words. “ _Self-care_? Ugh, I can’t believe I’ve become a person who says that. Anyway, so — I saw you talking about — last year, and I know — obviously it’s not the same, like, saving the universe is obviously a whole different ball game from being a crazy teenage girl — and you seemed fine, talking about it, but — I just, I heard you telling the story, and something about it felt — I don’t know. Um.” She brushes her bangs out of her face. “And then you left, and I saw you out here, and I guess I wanted to — check in, just in case. See if there was anything… if you wanted to talk, or really really _not_ talk, or — anyway.” She takes a sip of her own drink and bites her lip, looking at the floor.

Quentin stares at her, trying to process what she’s saying. He doesn’t have a script for this. He takes a drink and watches her fingers around the neck of her beer bottle, thumb sliding back and forth along the condensation. Behind him he thinks he can hear the ocean.

“I’m sorry,” Luisa says, shaking her head in embarrassment, “I shouldn’t have — I don’t even know you, I’ll just leave you alone —”

She turns to go and Quentin finds his voice to say, “No — no, it’s okay. You don’t have to go.” Meaning: stay. Please stay. The words like a language he’s forgotten how to speak.

She stops at the door and faces him, unsure. “I don’t mind —”

“No, really, it’s fine, I —” His heart is pounding. “I was sixteen, too,” he says, and some tension eases out of her shoulders. “Or, not — that was the first time I was hospitalized, for, uh — just depression, mostly, I guess.” He hasn’t spoken about this in so long. It feels like he’s describing something that happened to someone he knew once. “I hadn’t — and then I think it was like a year and a half later that I made like a plan, although I didn’t actually try until — but I did get as far as writing a note that time, which really freaked out my dad, because I was going to college in the fall, and….” He doesn’t know why he’s saying all this, where the words are coming from. “Sorry, we don’t need to get into that whole — sordid history.” He shakes himself a little, trying to figure out what he actually wants to tell her. Finally he says: “So you don’t…. not know me. In a way.”

Luisa takes this in; gives him a small smile.

“And you’re right,” he says. “It has been — rough, the past couple weeks, or — really since I woke up. It’s been — well bad, actually.“ He startles himself with a laugh. “Really, really bad. Just a bunch of bad, horrible, awful months.” He can’t stop grinning as he says it, which probably makes him look like a lunatic, but it’s such a fucking relief to finally just — say it, out loud. “Like, just so unbelievably awful, all the time, that I think by now I feel worse than I did before I died, which is, I mean that’s crazy, things were so fucked up then, but —” His throat tightens and he looks pleadingly at her, willing her to understand.

“Yeah,” she says softly. She comes to stand by him against the porch, the two of them gazing out at the beach. “Have people been asking you about it, like, constantly?”

“It comes up a lot,” Quentin says. “Especially now that we’ve been on the road, you know, meeting new people… I didn’t realize how far the story had traveled. But, you know, I have to say —” He laughs a little, ruefully. “I don’t think that my problem is a lack of me-time.”

“Mmmmm,” says Luisa, tilting her chin, “that’s not _quite_ what I said.”

Quentin picks at the edge of the label on the bottle. “No,” he says, “I guess it’s not.”

“For me,” Luisa says, “it’s sort of like — so I did a couple semesters at Blackholly College, before I had to drop out for mental health shit, and —” Quentin is shocked by the wave of gratitude that rushes through him to hear her say it like that. “— You know how in school they always tell you, after a big spell, or something really collaborative, you’ve got to run your runes, or do a couple nights in a salt circle, or chug some ground calendula, to —” She sing-songs: “ _Protect your energetic hygiene, so you don’t burn out!_ And you’re like, a brand new magician and an idiot so you’re like, _fuck you, I don’t need to run a rose quartz along my meridians!_ ”

“Uh,” Quentin says, “not really?”

“You didn’t get that spiel at — where did you go?”

“Brakebills,” he tells her, “although technically I never graduated either.”

She covers her mouth in mocking amazement. “So old-school! Are they still throwing around ‘magic comes from pain?’”

“They — are, actually,” he says, startled. “Was that — not a thing where you went?”

“Not since like, the seventies, at least.” Luisa says, rolling her eyes. Quentin doesn’t know what to make of that. “Anyway, it’s kind of like that. Like if it comes up for me in a big way, somehow, even if I don’t talk about it, it takes something out of me, and I’m fine, I’ll be fine — but I just need to put something back in, so I’m not running on empty.”

“Right,” Quentin says, taking a drink. It sounds — nice, impossible. All nice things sound impossible, lately. Longer than lately, maybe. He does feel emptied out. Scraped hollow, drained of everything real. Like a ghost, acting out a story he can’t even understand anymore. Like he never really came back from the dead. “Hey,” he says, standing straight and turning to her, “you want to get out of here?” Immediately he hears how it sounds and cringes. “I didn’t — I just meant walk around a bit. Get some space, before we go back in. If you wanted.” He’s nervous. He doesn’t know if he’s more worried about hearing yes or no.

“Sure,” Luisa says. “We could walk down the beach.”

“Is it open this late?” he says.

“I think so,” Luisa says. “But I mean —” She grins. “We’re magicians. We can go wherever the fuck we want.”

“Okay,” he says, feeling — his heartbeat, all through his chest. “Yeah, let me just — tell my friend.” He texts Julia, hoping she won’t be too worried, and puts his phone back in his pocket. “You lead the way.”

“Can do,” Luisa says, smiling. She drains her beer and sets it down on the porch and Quentin does the same before following her down the steps and onto the sand.

Luisa enchants their shoes and socks to hover politely behind them like floats in a parade and they walk barefoot along the shore, away from the other houses, letting the water wash over their feet. Quentin digs his toes into the wet sand, feeling it give under his step, clump along his skin and fall off as he walks. He knows he’s kind of drunk but even so he wonders when the last time was that he felt — just sensation, like this. Just soft grainy muck and cool water rushing over, lapping his ankles. He can’t hear anything but the dull slap of their footsteps and the swelling of the waves.

When they’ve been walking maybe twenty minutes Luisa stops. “We shouldn’t go any further,” she says. “There’s a selkie colony out here — that’s what keeps the water so warm. We have a good relationship with them, but they’re territorial about magic-users crossing their boundary unannounced.” She tips her face up at him. “Want to turn around?”

“Not really,” he says. “But I guess we should.”

“We can stay a little longer,” Luisa says. “Here, let’s sit.”

They walk up the dunes to where the sand is dry. Luisa takes out of her bag a miniaturized beach towel — “Always gotta be ready,” she says, “in case someone says fuck it, let’s go” — and unrolls it to its full size and they sit, looking out at the sand and the white froth scalloping the shore and beyond that the sea and the sky, two planes of darkness meeting almost invisibly at the horizon. The moon is either near-full or just past it, shining a wavering trail of white atop the waves to the horizon.

“Your safehouse seems like a cool place,” Quentin says to make conversation.

Luisa wrinkles her nose. “My what?”

“Your — the house, where you live with — I’m not great with names, I want to say…” He tries to recall Julia’s conversation with the guy in his forties. “Ray, maybe? And —”

“ _Oh_ ,” she says. “God, I forgot the East Coast still calls them that.”

“You don’t call them safehouses here?” he asks, feeling an unfamiliar stirring of curiosity. He can’t remember the last time he had this, or did this: just talking to someone, and listening to what they say.

“I mean, that’s an exaggeration,” she says. “Some people do. But it’s mostly the ones really plugged into, like, _hedge politics_ , you know? There’s a _lot_ of unaccredited magic users in California. Most of them aren’t counting down the days till their next star tattoo.”

“Huh,” Quentin says, considering. “I didn’t know there were, like. Regional differences like that.”

“How is it,” Luisa says, peering at him, “that you’ve been to the literal end of the actual multiverse, and you’re still shocked that things don’t happen the same way everywhere?” She narrows her eyes. “Are you one of those awful New Yorkers who think the world doesn’t exist outside of New York?”

“Oh I’m _much_ worse,” Quentin says, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “I’m one of those people, _even though_ ” — he leans in conspiratorially — “I grew up in _Jersey_.”

Luisa tosses a sweet little peal of laughter into the sky. Quentin feels electrified to hear it. He can’t remember the last time he made someone laugh like that. “Oh, _ew_ ,” she says, swatting his shoulder. “That _is_ worse.”

“I told you,” Quentin says, grinning still, “I’m awful.”

“Unforgivable.”

His stomach twists. “Something like that.”

She laughs again and Quentin wonders if they’re flirting or if he’s forgotten what it feels like to have a normal conversation. He wonders what would happen if he tried to kiss her, now: if she would be hurt that he tried to take advantage of her after she offered up her own vulnerability because she wanted to help, or if she would feel that they were two people who had found a connection, temporary but real, and sex was one way to hold on to it a little longer. He wonders what it would be like to go home with her: what she likes, how she moves, how her voice would change once she was talking to someone she was touching. If she would whisper what she wanted, cry out low as he learned her body. If they would keep talking, once they were in bed together. If he could still make her laugh. He pictures it: his hands along the skin of her back; her breasts bare as he kissed his way down her front; her thighs tensing around his face; her hand gripping him to guide him inside her. Her gasping breath. Then afterwards: the two of them sleepy and spent, exchanging words without stakes. Those silly smug smiles. Endeared by her messy hair, curling against her to sleep. Waking up together, bantering through the contented awkwardness of the morning after, uncertain but not unkind. Telling her to look him up if she was ever in New York, and maybe meaning it. Maybe even thinking she might.

He says, “So what’s the deal with the house? How did you all meet?”

“Toni inherited it,” she says, “from some aunt, when she was like eighteen. In her will apparently the aunt said it was her way of apologizing for not being able to get her away from her parents sooner. She and Ray were already out looking for spells every weekend, and they moved in with their friends from that scene. Eventually the others left and they stayed, and new people kind of drifted in over time. She says she likes feeling like she can give something back to magic, since it’s given so much to her. Like it’s good that there’s a house that’s just — a place people can come and be decent to each other and love magic together.”

“Are there like, requirements?” Quentin asks. “Or an application process of some kind? How did you wind up here?”

“Uh, there’s a chore wheel?” Luisa says. “We all chip in for bills, although I’ve lived here — wow, I guess I’m going on four years now, and I’ve never seen anyone kicked out if they couldn’t pay their share. We do a lot of collaborative magic but it’s not like, mandatory. It’s not super formal — they don’t really bring in strangers. Just, you know, friends of friends. Someone’s moving out, they might recommend their friend to take their room. Or someone who used to live here might let us know they have a friend moving to San Diego, could they crash here for a bit. Not everyone stays here long-term. Usually in the summer there’s a field researcher or two doing something with the selkies, or with one of the really fucked up haunted houses in La Jolla. I moved in with my boyfriend, when I first came, and then he got into law school to study magical statutes.”

“You don’t like lawyers?”

“He got into law school in _Wyoming_ ,” Luisa says, and Quentin laughs. She studies him, her smart eyes sparking thoughtfully. For just a second he thinks of Julia with a passing ache. “We have a couple empty rooms right now, if you and your friend wanted to stay for a while. No pressure, obviously — you just sort of sounded like you were thinking about it.”

Quentin smoothes out a little patch of sand by his side. “I thought you didn’t usually let in strangers.”

“You’re not a _stranger_ ,” she says, playfully offended. “You think I would walk along the beach at night with a stranger? Please. I haven’t been that suicidal in _years_.” They both laugh at that, even as a pang of envy stings Quentin’s chest. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to say that, and mean it.

“I guess I was thinking about it,” he says slowly. The bay in front of them continues its steady exhalations on the shore, water reaching up before beginning its journey back out to the Pacific. He remembers suddenly the Hudson on the day they left New York: its dull shine like silver under the clouds. “Or I was thinking —” He gives a short sharp laugh, shaking his head. “I was thinking, I came back from the dead, from the literal end of the actual multiverse, and now I’ve crossed the entire continent, ocean to fucking ocean, looking for something to make me feel just marginally okay, and I haven’t found it.” Sitting on the roof with Alice all those years ago, overwhelmed suddenly with the miracle his life had become and how badly he had kept living it. Understanding for a moment what he had understood before and would understand again but had never yet learned to hold onto long enough to make a difference: that there were no secret doors. Not at Brakebills, and not in Fillory, and not in fucking death itself. Always almost seeing it, and always making himself forget. “I keep — pushing, and running, and burning down my entire fucking life over and over again, and it’s — not working, or helping, at all, and it’s — destroying everything I actually care about, so —”

Eliot’s eyes, soft and wounded on his bed in Whitespire, at what he’d thought was the beginning of this mess but was maybe just the latest verse of a song he’d sung before. Julia frightened and furious striding out of the hotel room, knowing exactly who he was. Penny crouching on the white tiles of the bathroom floor, saying: _What the fuck are you going to do now?_

“So,” he says, caught in a rush of desperation so deep it must be real, “so maybe it’s time for me to try something new.”

-

They wind up crashing at the house after all, Julia exhausted and appeased by the group’s apparent adult conviviality. In the morning Toni, who turns out to be the woman with the honey-colored braid, makes waffles for the residents and assorted leftovers of the night before, while Ray fusses with a coffee maker clearly still usable only thanks to a patchwork of spells until he’s brewed a pot for the group. The atmosphere is casual; Luisa sits at the table to talk to a friend, while another member of the house whose name Quentin can’t remember comes downstairs with rumpled hair, grabs a pair of waffles and a cup of coffee with a hoarse thanks and promises of future reciprocation, and heads back up to his room.

They’ve gotten confirmation on how their route is set to go next. “It turned out Penny had a couple connections in the Southwest that Kady looped in, so we’ll be heading up the coast next,” Julia explains while they’re standing in the kitchen after breakfast, finishing their coffee. The night seems to have thawed her lingering tension for now. “And then maybe crossing Montana for a while on our way back — apparently there’s a huge hedge population out there, proportionally speaking, but they’re super spread out. Our next stop is the Bay Area, but that network is still pulling together volunteers, so we have some time if you want to hang out here for a while, or get there early. We could go back to L. A. if there was anything you wanted to see.”

Quentin nods like he’s considering. He drinks some coffee to steel his nerves and then before he can chicken out he says, “Jules, would it — if I didn’t come with you — like can Kady send someone, or are there maybe some local magicians you could meet up with?”

Julia knits her brows together slightly. “It would take some communicating,” she says, “but we could figure it out. Why? Do you — are you feeling like you need to go home?”

Now or never. “Actually,” he says, looking into his cup to avoid her eyes, “I was thinking of staying here for a while. Like… maybe a long while.”

Julia doesn’t say anything at first. When he dares to look up, she’s still got that expression, somewhere between concerned and quizzical. “Okay,” she says slowly. “Can I ask… why?”

“Because —” His chest feels too small for the hugeness of what he wants to say. He doesn’t know how to make it fit into words. “Because it’s not working, Jules. Sitting in New York wasn’t working, and moving from place to place isn’t working, and I don’t think either of those things is going to change, so — I think I need to do something else.”

Julia nods. He can see understanding start to seep into her eyes. “And you think staying here will help?”

“To tell you the truth, I have no clue,” Quentin says. “But I don’t have any better ideas.”

“Okay,” she says, taking the information in. “Do you want me to stay here with you?”

“Honestly?” He manages a watery smile. “I really, really do. But I think… I think I have to tell you to go.”

“Q,” she says, stepping close and placing her hand on his on the countertop. “I don’t mind, really. I can tell Kady to get someone else. I’m not irreplaceable. And you’re more important to me than this.”

“I know,” he says, “Jules, but I can’t — I can’t ask you to keep cleaning up after me while I keep chasing — I don’t even know what. I don’t even know what I’m looking for, or what I need. And you have your own life, you have other things to do besides watch me — fall apart over and over again.”

“It’s not like that, Q,” she protests. She looks like she might be on the verge of tears, which — god, he’s so sick of making her feel awful. “None of that stuff matters to me like you do. There is nothing I want to do more than I want to help you.”

“I know, Jules,” he says again. “I haven’t — acted like it lately, but I really do know. And I _really_ —” He’s starting to choke up, too. “I really haven’t been acting like this lately, but — you matter to me too. And if — if I felt like the two of us were even barely on the way to figuring out whatever the fuck it is that’s happening in my head, I would say, let’s go to L. A., or let’s both stay here, but — it’s not working, Jules.”

Julia has started to cry. He clutches her fingers against his palm, aching with her, for her. “You know I would do anything to help you, Q,” she says. “I’ve been trying so hard —”

“But I haven’t,” he says. She looks up at him, big eyes sad and full and scared, and he makes himself say what they both know, voice thick. “I haven’t been trying, like, at all. I’ve been — whatever the opposite of trying is. I think — it feels like there is something inside me that doesn’t want to get better.” It comes out of him like the unburdening of a secret he didn’t know he was keeping. “And I don’t know why. I don’t know why I don’t want that, and I don’t know why anytime someone tries to help me this thing just gets — _worse_ , like it digs in deeper, and — I don’t understand it, I don’t get what’s going on with me. But I can’t — I can’t keep letting it take the people I love down with me.”

“If this is some kind of penance,” Julia says, “for the other night—”

“No, it’s —” He gives a sad laugh. “It’s way more selfish than that. See, I’ve lost a lot, in the past couple years — well. Some things I’ve lost, some things I’ve — really just fucked entirely to hell and back. But there’s this one really, really good thing that I have somehow been lucky enough to keep, and — and I almost broke it.” He’s really crying now. “And I… I can’t risk that again. Because that would be — the worst thing, if I… I couldn’t live with myself after that. Not ever again. So I can’t risk it, and I can’t — trust myself, Jules, I can’t figure out what’s real and I can’t stop doing things I don’t even think I want to be doing and I can’t — I don’t know who I fucking am right now, okay? But I know that you mean more to me than just about anything. So I need — something, and I don’t know what that is, but I didn’t find it in New York and I didn’t find it on the road and I don’t know if I’ll find it here, but. More than anything, I need to protect that — that most important thing. I need to know that it’s safe. So that whatever else happens, at least — at least I have that to come back to, if I ever — make it out of whatever this is.”

Julia wipes her eyes, nodding. She looks — angry, almost, but he knows her too well to mistake that. He knows she feels worried, and helpless, and sad.

He knows she loves him.

“Okay,” she says finally. “Okay.” And then she pulls him in for a hug.

Quentin almost backs out there, chin nestled against the familiar crook in her shoulder, pressing her warmth against him. Letting himself be held. He almost says: I changed my mind, I can’t do this without you, please don’t leave. I’ll be better for you, I’ll be good, I’ll do everything right and I’ll only be easy and you won’t have to worry again. But when he tries to picture himself as the person who can keep that promise, the image dissolves. He can’t make it real.

“You’ll call, right?” she says against his ear. “Or text, at least?”

“Yeah, of course,” he says. Reluctantly he makes himself pull back to look her in the eye. “I’m hanging out in California, not joining a monastery. We’ll still talk.”

“Okay,” she says. “Good. That’s good. Because —” She shuts her mouth, like if she kept talking she’d cry again.

“And hey,” he says, “if you have that time — before you drive out, I’d love to spend a day on the beach with my best friend.”

She smiles up at him, eyes sparkling with tears and with love. He loves her so, so much. “Yeah. I’d like that a lot.”

-

Luisa shows them to a trunk in a closet filled with clothes left by previous occupants when they’d moved out — “We run a thorough roster of cleaning spells before they wind up here,” she assures them, “ _obviously_ ” — and they manage to dig out bathing suits that will work for the two of them. There’s a part of Quentin that’s not thrilled about the prospect of existing in public shirtless for any amount of time, ever and especially right now, but that particular hang-up seems almost comically unimportant compared to the goal of having one decent day with Julia before they part ways.

Julia wants to check out the boardwalk, and Quentin wants to do whatever Julia wants to do, so once he’s convinced her of that they drive across the peninsula to Mission Beach, strolling amidst Sunday crowds of teenagers giddy in their exposed skin and families leading little kids by the hand. Once they’ve walked long enough to be hungry for lunch they get tacos at a place Ray recommended, then head back down to the beach and spread out Luisa’s towel at a spot that’s not too busy to digest on the sand. Julia throws up a discreet ocular UV spell against the midday glare. She seems sincerely replenished by the sun and the sand and the general air of unhurried recreation, flip-flops and umbrellas and genial shrieks from down by the surf, which Quentin finds kind of impressive. Or maybe she’s just relieved that he’s made it fully sober past two in the afternoon.

“Can I ask you something?” he says while they’re lying on their backs. “Like as a real question?

She turns her head to look at him. “Of course, Q.”

He tries to figure out how to word what he wants to say. “Clearly I have — some information about this, but — besides the obvious, so to speak… what have you been up to these past couple months?”

The grin that spreads across her face is — honestly it feels kind of awful, seeing how happy she is to watch him meet this depressingly low baseline of human companionship. But it helps, too, to have proof he can still be something other than a drag on her life.

They spend a long time catching up. It turns out — in retrospect unsurprisingly — Julia’s been busy as hell. Quentin hears about connecting hedge networks in New York, Kady’s plans to increase access first to magical knowledge and eventually to actual training; about researching magical caselaw to give Alice the strongest argument possible to present to the board of the New Library for opening membership as wide as they can once the stacks are operational again; about scouring pawn shops across South Brooklyn with the Pennys for the Baba Yaga’s latest tithe; about consulting at Brakebills.

“I’m sorry,” Quentin says, grinning by now, “ _consulting?_ ”

Julia rolls her eyes. “That’s what Henry calls it — I think he just likes having an excuse to email me all the time.”

“Oh, he’s _Henry_ now.”

“He _insisted_ ,” Julia says, like that doesn’t make it funnier. “But basically, _we’re_ working towards a world with no gatekeepers, right — a world where anyone with magical facility can develop their talents, regardless of whether one of the schools deems them a worthy investment. The schools hold a _lot_ of sway over issues of access, including obviously the laws protecting their ability to mind-wipe at their own discretion. And there are tons of scholars who support our goals ideologically. A bunch of faculty at Ravensdale, in Queens, signed an open letter to their peer institutions last year encouraging them to reconsider their stance. But institutionally, the schools have a vested interest in protecting their position as the official arbiters of magical education, because —”

“If anyone can become a magician without them,” Quentin fills in, “they run the risk of becoming obsolete.”

Julia smiles. “Exactly. So I’m trying to lay the groundwork for Brakebills to come onboard by convincing them this is their chance to get ahead of the cultural shift. Access _is_ spreading, whether the schools like it or not. No one’s putting that genie back in the bottle, especially not after what the Library pulled. So one way for Brakebills to continue to attract high-talent students is to retool the master’s program to offer more avenues for specialization, more opportunities for students to collaborate with professors on actual research. Expanding the thesis options. That kind of thing. Which, as I keep trying to explain to Henry, is what grad school _is_ in literally every other field on earth. You don’t get a master’s in math to learn twelfth-grade calculus.”

“Right,” Quentin says. “So you’re dragging Brakebills kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. As your like, side hustle.”

Julia laughs. “I’m _trying_.” She leans back against her hands, arms propping her up from behind. “Can I ask you a question now?”

He’s a little nervous about what she might want to know, but he doesn’t really feel like he has the right to refuse. “Sure.”

She tilts her head to regard him. “Why don’t you want to go to therapy?”

Quentin scoops up a bit of sand, lets it drain through the spaces between his fingers. Swipes his palms together to dust them off. He leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “Because I don’t think it will help.”

He waits for her to argue. To say _That’s your depression talking_ , or _You can talk through that once you start_ , or _Even if it feels that way, why can’t you try?_ But she just nods like she’s taking it in, and asks, “Has it helped when you went before?”

He thinks about them: Cheerful Jennifer with her beaded glasses chain and her set of Connect Four, asking him questions about his card tricks. Gravel-voiced Dr. Fuches, serious and kind, with his white lab coat in the hospital explaining to him that he had an illness in his brain. Jason with his ever-present mug of tea and that smile like he desperately wanted to believe he was helping, stony Dr. Jansen writing out another refill on her clipboard. Maura nearly done with her degree at the Columbia School of Social Work, eagerly sympathetic and prone to showing off how much she remembered from their previous sessions. The woman — he hadn’t bothered to learn her name — at Midtown Mental Health, advising him to seek further treatment, meaning more talking. More sympathy. More questions he couldn’t answer, more advice he wouldn’t take. More hours spent trying to craft the story of himself into something that made sense. “I don’t know. It’s like — there’s this hole that I keep falling into. And maybe there have been times when it’s been useful to have someone tell me, hey, idiot, you’re in a hole, get up, or — or it’s helped to say out loud, I am officially, diagnosably in a hole, to kind of make myself… see it. To admit that it’s happened again, so I can… start getting out. And maybe they show me a ledge, where I can start climbing, or something. Point out that first step. But — I’m still the one who has to get out, you know? That part… always feels like it happens alone.”

Julia nods, listening. “Is that what this feels like?”

“I mean —” He kind of laughs. “My nervous breakdowns usually involve a lot less sex with random strangers.” He considers her question seriously. “I don’t know, maybe? I mean you could call it a hole, but it’s — a fucking big one. And this time I feel like on some level I don’t even want to get out. Like every time someone tries to help me, sends down some, some rope, or a flashlight, or whatever, I just… bury it, or…. Like I don’t even remember how to live — up there, anymore. Where there’s shit like — direct sunlight, and other people.”

“That sounds hard,” says Julia.

“Yeah, maybe,” Quentin says. He bites at some chapped skin on his bottom lip. “I don’t know. Part of me thinks it should — feel harder. If it did maybe I wouldn’t have…” Some fraction of the belated shame of the past two months washes over him and for a second he has to fight the impulse to bury himself alive right there on the beach. “I really am so sorry, Jules. About — all of it, what I said and — just what a fucking asshole I’ve been, like, this whole time and especially lately. I can’t believe I let it — get to a point where I didn’t even let myself see that I was…” He can’t figure out how to describe it.

Julia doesn’t respond right away. Further along the beach some kids have set up a very half-assed volleyball game that seems like an excuse to either show off their athleticism or scream endearingly for the attention of their crush, depending on any given person’s hand-eye coordination. “When I was shadeless,” Julia says, “I hit a point where I — I could tell that there was something missing. That there was this — empty place, where I should have felt things that hurt. And I could see that I’d fucked things up, because the way I was built inside had gone wrong, but knowing that didn’t show me how to make it right.”

Quentin fiddles with the tassel at the edge of the beach towel. “I mean, that’s awful, but — you had kind of an ironclad excuse. You weren’t you.”

Julia smiles crookedly. “It’s funny. I don’t really think of it like that anymore. Alice and I have talked about this, a bit. That’s the story that makes sense, and maybe it’s even true. But that’s not how it feels, because… you were _there_. You remember wanting what you wanted, and doing what you did. And you’re the one that has to find a way to live with it in the end, because whatever anyone else tells you about why it didn’t count — when it was actually happening, it sure fucking _felt_ like a choice you were making.”

“Still,” Quentin says. “There was an actual part of you literally missing. It’s not the same.”

“No, it’s not the same,” Julia agrees. “But does it have to be that different? We talk about magic and medicine like they’re separate, but I don’t think we really understand either of them enough to be sure that that’s true. We know that some illnesses _are_ magical in nature, at least partly. And we know that how you feel can interact with your magic — bring it out, make it weaker. Internal circumstances, neurochemical wiring, soul — maybe they’re not all the same, but those are all names for what makes a person a person.”

Quentin thinks about his blocked discipline, the hands that refuse to cast the magic he once shared with someone he loved and injured both. “You figured it out, though,” he says. “Even before you got your shade back, you were — putting it together, how to be a good person.”

“Yeah,” Julia says, “and do you remember why?”

He shrugs. “Because you’re amazing?”

She swats his shoulder. “Because of _you_ , Q. Because I almost got you fucking killed, and that was so fucked I could feel how awful it should have been when I literally couldn’t feel. That shook me up enough to realize I couldn’t just believe the voice in my head telling me what I wanted, because there was nothing I wanted like I wanted to make sure you never, ever looked at me like that again. You’re so much a part of me that even cutting out my shade couldn’t cut you out. And thank god, because I don’t know what else could have brought me out of the place I was in.”

Quentin watches the boardwalk for a bit: a father balances his toddler on his shoulders, a group of friends walks by, ice cream cones in hand. A runner in a sports bra and neon yellow shorts weaves through the crowd, wiry muscles shining with sweat. “So how do you think of it now?”

“When I think of it now,” Julia says, “I think — something really bad happened to me. Something hurt me so deeply, it changed who I was. And after that, I had to learn all over again how to be myself.”

Down by the surf a set of middle-aged women hold hands as they walk into the ocean, laughing as the water hits their skin. Quentin says, “Penny said…. He told me he had some, like, leftover memories from his time in the Underworld. About — how they’d expected it to play out at the Seam.”

Julia watches him, waiting.

“He said…” Quentin hesitates, makes himself plunge forward. “He said in the version they saw, I didn’t, um — I found a way to stop Everett and the monster and everything, and get the rest of us out. Alive. Like, me included. So — I thought, or more like I hoped, I guess, that he was just fucking with me, but — he wasn’t.”

Gently Julia says, “I don’t think Penny would do that.”

“Yeah,” Quentin says. “This whole time, I thought — I really didn’t go in there planning to die, Jules. You have to believe me on that.”

“I do,” she says.

“I thought — if I didn’t plan to, then I couldn’t have….” He shakes his head. “But the thing is, when Penny explained to me how it worked, this other plan, it was — it was so simple, and not just that but it — like it _felt_ like something I would come up with. It sounded like the way I think, the way my brain — puts things together. It made sense that I would have come up with that. Only I didn’t. It didn’t occur to me at all. Instead —”

_—You’ll go down as a hero._

“— instead I saw what I did, and it just — it made such perfect sense to me, instantly.” Not a second’s doubt, once the idea was in his head. Quentin had never been more sure, or less afraid. “It just _fit_. Not just that one moment, but like — my whole life. And when I look back — I don’t know if it made sense to me because I got to be the one that saved everyone, or because I got to fucking die. And I honestly don’t know which one is worse.”

“God,” Julia says. “I can’t imagine how awful that must feel.”

“So how am I supposed learn how to be myself again,” Quentin says, “if myself is — if that’s how I wound up here in the first place? I mean, what you said the other night —”

“I was pissed,” Julia says.

“You were right.” He looks at her. “I do the same shit over and over again, and — going back to the old version of my shit, like, how does that end any differently?”

“I don’t know,” Julia says. He appreciates her honesty. “But I think you can figure it out.”

Quentin says, “Why?” It comes out more self-pitying than he wanted.

“Because,” Julia says, “this conversation, today? Right now? That’s already more than you’ve ever, ever said to me about your fucked-up stuff.”

Quentin blinks, startled. “That can’t be true.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Do you have a counterexample?”

“I —” But he doesn’t, he realizes. Not once in twenty years has he ever tried to explain to Julia how it feels, to be inside his fractured head and his bruised heart. Not once has he wanted to let her see. “I guess not.”

“See?” Julia smiles. “You’re already doing something new.”

“Maybe,” he says, unconvinced. He’s not sure it counts if it’s only happening because he’s burned himself so close to the bone he doesn’t have the energy anymore to hide. “Hey,” he says, sitting up straight, his stamina for the subject of himself exhausted, “you wanna go in?”

“That’s what _she_ said,” Julia says, huge grin on her face that only widens when he groans; then she stands and says, “Yeah. Let’s get wet.”

-

In the evening they retire to the house on the bay, pleasantly tired out from walking in the heat and swimming in the ocean, and take turns showering and changing for the night before cozying up a little while longer in the room Quentin slept in last night. He wonders if this is going to be his room for as long as he stays here, or if there’s some moving-in protocol no one’s told him about yet. Quentin digs his laptop out of his bag and props it up on the night table by the bed so they can watch their favorite episodes of _The Office_ , sitting up against the wall while Julia lies on her side in front of him, hands folded under her head. When they get five minutes into the episode about Ryan’s website with not a peep out of her, he hunches over to check in and sees her eyes softly closed.

“Jules?” he says. He nudges her shoulder. “Hey, you should probably get to bed.”

“Mhmm,” she says without opening her eyes. “That’s a good idea, Q.”

Quentin smiles to himself. Yeah, she’s out for the night. He wonders if he should get up, go to the room she’d been planning to sleep in. Give her space. But he knows her well enough to know that if she needed space tonight, she would have taken it. Instead she’s here, curled on her side, the rhythm of her breath already slowing. Her face smoothed out in rest. He settles in beside her, carefully so as not to disturb her, thinking of sleepovers like this when they were little kids. Her stuffed panda and polka-dot PJs, his Star Wars T-shirts and beanbag frog. Cereal and toast in the mornings, their legs dangling in her family’s dining room chairs. Long afternoons sprawled on their bellies with crayons and colored pencils. Julia taking his hand in his bedroom while his parents fought in the last few months before they finally split, coming up always with the perfect scheme or game to distract him from the shouting downstairs. Fierce middle school debates over whether Tolkien was sexist about which she was in retrospect obviously correct. The mix CD he burned for her the week her dad went away because he didn’t know what else to do and the way she stared at it for so long he started to think he’d done something wrong before she flung her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder, squeezing tight. Her eyes scanning the crowd outside the school building the day he came back for the first time since the hospital and how when they walked together through the doors a part of him thought that without her he wouldn’t have made it inside. Throwing up in her bathroom sink while she threw up in the toilet the first night they raided her mom’s liquor cabinet when she was out of town. Holding her hand while she cried because Jordan had gotten a handjob from some other girl at the homecoming afterparty and realizing to his own surprise that it felt awful in this case to have been proven right. Shrieking with joy when their acceptances came from Columbia, poring over the course catalogue imagining the people they might become. Shopping together for dorm supplies on 114th, getting pad thai after finals ten blocks down.

For a long time he watches her sleep thinking: All of that. All of that, and he nearly threw it away. Reeling with a kind of awestruck horror at his own carelessness. How close he came to destroying all of that. Their everything, which was his everything.

His whole life.

He remembers what she said on the beach: that he was a part of her, in places even deeper than her shade. A love planted beyond the reach of any wound. He doesn’t know that his love is worth much these days, if it ever was, but he thinks he might understand what she meant. If there’s a part of himself he doesn’t hate, it’s the part where Julia is. Maybe this is what people mean when they talk about rock bottom: what lives far enough inside your core that it can’t be moved. The place you reach that won’t yield to your own destruction. At least for now there’s relief in finding in himself something he knows beyond question to be true: he’s done wrecking this. That’s solid enough to hold onto. To offer him a ledge.

Maybe that’s all it is, and maybe that’s all it ever will be. Maybe he’ll never fix his magic or have a real relationship or fuck someone whose last name he knows or eat a balanced meal or have somewhere to go in the mornings other than the swamp of his own misery or talk to other people like a normal human being. Maybe he’ll live his days out as a fuck-up and die alone and forgotten and maybe he’ll never speak to anyone else from his old life again. Maybe dying will always be the best thing he ever did. But him and Julia — he’ll keep the two of them safe. Quentin says it to himself in time with the rise and fall of her back, sure and steady as the pulse of the waves, and it feels for the first time in longer than he can remember like something right and real: I won’t break this. I won’t break this. I won’t break this. I won’t.

-

“So text me when you get to San Francisco,” Quentin says.

“I will,” Julia says.

The two of them stand facing each other outside the car. They’ve been putting off this part so long that now she’s in danger of running late, but neither of them wants to be the one to finalize their separation. The first time they’ve ever split up on purpose longer than a stay at summer camp.

“I feel like I should say something other than good-bye,” Julia says.

“I’m a phone call away,” Quentin says, even though the same sense is tugging at him. “It’s not like — I’m not going off-grid to live in a yurt. It’s barely even a good-bye.”

“Right.” Julia nods like she’s trying to convince herself. “Well, then I won’t say it. But I am going to give you a hug.”

“Of course,” he says, and holds his arms out to pull her in.

The instant she’s close against him, chin on his shoulder and arms around his neck, both of them are seized with an instinct to cling tight, squeezing like they might never see each other again, no matter how reasonably they could talk about it seconds earlier. Quentin closes his eyes, trying to memorize this moment like a talisman to keep him company in the lonesome days to come.

“You’re sure you’re making a good choice with this,” Julia says next to his ear. “You’re sure —”

“I’m not sure of anything right now,” Quentin says, “except you. But —” He doesn’t let go as he thinks about what he’s really doing. Why it may or may not feel right, but it does feel less wrong than everything else he’s tried. “For the first time in weeks, I feel like I _am_ making a choice.” Maybe months. Maybe fucking years. “So — that’s something, right?”

“Yeah,” she says, sniffling a little. She grips him harder to say, “I love you so fucking much, Q. Whatever you need, I want you to find it. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you. Remember that, okay?”

“Okay,” he says, trying to hold it together. “I love you, too. So, so much.” He realizes then what he needs her to hear. “And Jules — none of this is your fault, okay?”

“I know,” Julia says quickly, but —

“It’s not,” he says. “You have to know that, Jules. You have to.”

“Okay,” she says, nodding against his shoulder, “okay,” and he — hopes she believes it. He hopes she knows.

Finally, reluctantly, they let go, Julia laughing a little as she wipes her eyes. “Drive safe,” Quentin tells her as she slips into the car.

“I will,” she says. “Take care of yourself, Q.”

Hoping he sounds more confident than he feels, he says, “That’s the plan.” She smiles at him and shuts the door.

Quentin waves at her through the windshield as she pulls out of the spot. He stands there watching as she drives away down a street he should probably learn the name of, following the car with his gaze as it shrinks in the distance until she turns out of sight. Leaving him to his mistakes and his regrets, his cruelty and his lies. Every blistering fuck-up and every story he’s told himself to avoid looking it in the face. All those momentary escapes that only brought him back to what he was running from. He doesn’t know how he’s going to live with them or how to stop running or what he needs to do instead, but he knows he’s done making them anyone else’s problem. From now on, they’re his and his alone.

It’s a start.

**Author's Note:**

> story title is rilo kiley, "portions for foxes," because no one knows like jenny knows; series title is metric, lead track off an album quentin coldwater and i both spent huge portions of 2009 listening to on repeat in the grips of a nervous breakdown. the next part of this story is in progress; you can read it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27025885). ten billion infinite thanks and all the love in the world to [propinquitous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/propinquitous/pseuds/propinquitous) and [cartographies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartographies/pseuds/cartographies) for beta-ing and for endless hand-holding and cheerleading while i babbled endlessly about this beast; this has been a very unusual and extremely needy writing process for me, and i feel enormously lucky to have been able to work through it with such smart & talented people. thank you also to all of you who have been reading along; on top of the general loveliness of feeling like this story found its audience, being able to revisit this story by watching people respond has been both motivating and clarifying as i've been working to figure out the shape of part two. i am [on tumblr](http://prettyboysdontlookatexplosions.tumblr.com); so are announcement posts for the [whole story](https://prettyboysdontlookatexplosions.tumblr.com/post/626530229880569857/fic-damage-control-for-a-walking-corpse-16)/[last chapter](https://prettyboysdontlookatexplosions.tumblr.com/post/629698408998993920/fic-damage-control-for-a-walking-corpse-66).


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